Carter Sense of Place

A Sense of Place
An interpretive planning handbook

Editor: James Carter
Contributors:
Carl Atkinson, Centre for Environmental Interpretation.
Gillian Binks, Centre for Environmental Interpretation.
James Carter, Centre for Environmental Interpretation.
Gillian Dennis, Rona Gibb, Highland Interpretive Strategy Project.
Michael Glen, Touchstone Heritage Management Consultants.
Alison Parfitt, Alison Parfitt and Associates.
Bill Taylor, Highland Interpretive Strategy Project.
First edition 1997
Published by the Tourism and Environment Initiative
Bridge House, Bridge Street, Inverness IV1 1QR.
Second edition with revisions published in electronic format on the website of the Scottish Interpretation Network
(www.scotinterpnet.org.uk) 2001
Copyright
This publication may be freely copied and distributed in whole or in part as long as it is accompanied by the
information on this page.
Editor s note
The original book owed much to the enthusiasm and contributions of a steering group that guided its preparation.
The group members were:
Eric Baird, Glen Tanar Estate.
Neil Black, Scottish Tourist Board.
Duncan Bryden, Tourism and the Environment Initiative (now Scottish Wildlife Trust).
George Campbell, LIFE programme (now RSPB).
Julie Forrest, Scottish Natural Heritage.
Elizabeth Hay, Aberdeen Urban Studies Centre, Aberdeen District Council Education Department.
Bob Jones, Forestry Authority.
Quentin MacLaren, Solway Heritage (now Tweed Forum).
Bill Taylor, Highland Interpretive Strategy (now SNH).
I would also like to thank the many people who have helped to make the book, in addition to the contributors and
members of the steering group. In particular, I would like to thank Graham Barrow, Alice Bondi, Susan Cross,
Neil Diment, Sam Ham, Dan Hillier, David Mount, and John Veverka. Some of them commented on draft versions
of the original book, which helped to make it better organised and more useful. More significantly, my discussions
with them all have shaped the ideas about interpretation and its role which are reflected in the handbook.
James Carter
T
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Handbook
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The publication of the handbook was funded by:

Scottish Natural Heritage
Scottish Enterprise
Highlands and Islands Enterprise
Scottish Tourist Board
European Life Programme
Scottish Enterprise
Highlands
& Islands
ENTERPRISE
Contents
Introduction
1. What is interpretation?
1.1. Interpretation is about special places
1.2. What makes it interpretive?
1.3. Other aims for communication
2. Why plan interpretation?

2.1. How a plan will help you
9
9
2.2. Flow through it
2.3. What sort of plan?
10
3. What sort of plan?

3.1. Strategic or detailed?
12
13
3.4. Whats needed in a detailed interpretive plan?
13
3.5. Using interpretive consultants
15
3.6. How does interpretive planning link with other initiatives?
15
17
4.2. Working with Agencies
18
4.3. Working structures
19
4.4. Timescale
20
4.5. After the plan
20
21
21
5.3. Making sense of it all
23
5.4. Who is it for?
25
5.5. How are you going to interpret?
29
5.6. How will you know if you have achieved what you wanted to do?
31
5.7. Links between questions
31
5.8. Involving the community
31
5.9. Producing the plan
32
5.10. Implementation
32
33
6.1.Why evaluate interpretation?
33
6.2.When do I evaluate?
34
6.3.How do you do it?
35
6.4.Matching evaluation phase and technique
37
6.5.Measurement and sampling issues
37
7. Designing and producing interpretation

7.1. What makes communication work?
39
39
7.2. Ground rules
41
7.3. Personal interpretation
42
7.4. Outdoor panels
43
7.5. Publications
45
7.6. Multi - media
46
7.7. Visitor centres
47
7.8. Working with contractors
49
Further reading
which is right for you, the place, your visitors, and

for the time you make the decision, but
interpretation is not a scientific process with only
one answer. The real test is that your visitors go away
with some new thoughts and ideas: which means
that there are as many ways of interpreting
somewhere as there are people who visit it!
21
5.2. What are you going to interpret?
6. Is it working?
to be really effective, it needs to be planned with

both sensitivity and creativity. This handbook is an
introduction to doing that.
The handbook was produced in Scotland as part
of the Tourism and the Environment Initiative.
Within Scotland, and particularly in the Highlands
and Islands, there are many projects which aim to
present local heritage to visitors. The examples and
case studies included in the book reflect this, but
they are relevant to projects anywhere in the world.
If you already have some ideas about what you
want to do, try reading chapters 1 and 2, then
chapter 5. They should help you think your project
through, and make it more effective.
17
4.1. Working with communities
5.1. Why do you want to provide interpretation?
Chapter 3 looks in more detail at the different sorts

of plan you can prepare, while chapter 4 is a guide
to working with others on a plan, perhaps in a
community group. Chapter 6 introduces ways to
check whether you have got your point across.
Chapter 7 gives a brief guide to some principles of
interpretation and to the commonest media, with
their stengths and weaknesses.
One word of warning before you start!
Interpretation is a very personal thing. The questions
in this book will help guide you towards a solution
11
3.3. Whats needed in an interpretation strategy?
5. Putting the plan together
Managers of local museums, battlefield sites, nature

reserves, historic houses, whisky distilleries, ruined
castles and nuclear power stations all have something
in common. They have things of interest to show to
visitors, and they all have something to say about
them. Interpretation is the tool they use to do this.
Producing interpretation which balances the
needs of the visitors who will use it, the conservation
of the place which is its subject, the desires of those
who produce it, and the interests of those who will
live with it is not a simple matter. If interpretation is
11
3.2. Plans for different areas
4. Working with others
Introduction
Stirling Castle.
50
1 What is interpretation?
for the organisations and individuals involved.
That involves planning, which is what this handbook
is about.
1.1 INTERPRETATION IS
ABOUT SPECIAL PLACES
Interpretation is all about helping people
appreciate something that you feel is special.
Throughout this handbook we refer to
interpretation being about places, but it can
be about
The heritage connection
a building,
an area of countryside,
an aspect of cultural life, for example a
traditional celebration,
a town,
an object, or a collection of objects,
an industry,
an historical event or period,
an activity, for example working with a
sheep dog.
The principles covered in this book apply to all of

these; we have simply used place in most of the
examples to save repeating the list each time.
The handbook aims to help you both to plan
interpretation which will be effective, and to involve
local people as much as possible in the process.
Speyside
Cooperage:
working industries
can be as
interesting as
ancient castles.
There are many ways to define what interpretation

is, but all definitions have at their heart the idea of
sharing with others your enthusiasm for somewhere,
or something, which is significant. Its also
important that people will actually see or experience
for themselves the place you are interpreting.
Interpretation has been happening ever since
people have visited places because they thought
them interesting. Regency gentlemen making

their Grand Tour of Europe in the eighteenth
century were probably offered the services of local
guides. But interpretation was first established as a
subject in its own right by the United States
National Parks Service.
Freeman Tilden, who was involved in the early
interpretation work of the US National Park Service,
and who wrote the first book on the subject,
described it as:
...the work of revealing, to such visitors as desire the
service, something of the beauty and wonder, the
inspiration and spiritual meaning that lie behind what
the visitor can with his senses perceive.
Tilden was writing about interpreting landscapes
like the Grand Canyon, or Yosemite National
Park. His love for them, and his clear sense of
how important it is that other people care about
them too, are worth remembering. The early
National Parks had a mission to persuade a
sometimes sceptical public that the Parks were
worth conserving. You may not have such grand
landscapes to deal with, nor such an urgent
conservation message, but all good interpretation
needs at its heart an enthusiasm and a love for a
place, and a desire to share that with others.
Interpretation can take various forms it may
involve walks or tours with a guide, publications,
or panels at features of interest. Perhaps a series of
arts events can celebrate the wildlife of a forest,
or bring to life the history of a fishing village.
Important sites or large collections may need a
building of their own as a visitor centre or museum.
You may already have ideas about the interpretation
you would like to provide, but to make it successful
you need to make sure that it is appropriate for
the site, for the people who are coming there, and
At Grizedale
Forest, these
sculptures focus
the stillness
and privacy of
the woods: a
subtle form of
interpretation.
Interpreting a
nature reserve
can encourage
support for
conservation.
Interpretation is a part of how we manage and

understand our heritage a wide ranging term which
can include the songs and stories of an area, the
grassy knolls marking the site of pre-historic
settlements, the industries which give life to a town,
or the mosses growing in an oak wood. Whatever it
is, heritage is conserved because someone thinks it
important. Interpretation is a way of helping others
to appreciate that importance.
And if they appreciate it, people may support
efforts to conserve or protect the place concerned.
As Freeman Tilden described it, interpretation not
only tells people what is interesting about a place, it
aims to convince people of its value, and encourage
them to want to conserve it. Some have seen this as
an essential part of all interpretation. It is important
when you are dealing with sensitive or threatened
areas such as nature reserves. In other cases you may
not want to directly encourage a conservation ethic
interpretation in an historic town centre, for
example, does not usually include anything about
how visitors can care for the buildings. But behind
all interpretation there is still a sense that what is
being interpreted is valuable.
The tourism connection

Interpretation is also an important part of tourism
developments. This is especially true in Scotland,
where tourism relies more on the countrys culture
and landscape than on the chance to sunbathe!

Good interpretation helps visitors to explore and
understand a little more about the places they visit.
In doing so, it adds depth to tourists experience,
making a visit something more than just a trip to see
the sights. In some cases interpretation
is essential if the site is to come alive at
all: most battlefield sites would be
nothing but an empty field to most
visitors without interpretation to evoke
something of the atmosphere of the
time, and to tell them how what
happened there affected the countrys
history.
This makes interpretation as
important a part of the tourism product
as places to stay, a friendly welcome,
and good food. If visitors feel that a
place is interesting or exciting, they are
more likely to recommend it to others.
Good interpretation makes for satisfied
customers, and satisfied customers are
good for business.
Interpretation can also make money
in its own right, through the sale of
publications or admission fees to
centres, but its not always easy to
combine this with a sustainable
approach. In financial terms, it may be
better to think of interpretation mainly
as something which contributes to the
Tourist
attractions
like Deep Sea
World use
interpretation
to increase
customer
satisfaction.
Tourism and the environment in harmony
Reveal
Interpretation is an important part of sustainable tourism. The Tourism and the Environment Forum works with these
principles for tourism development:
The natural, built and cultural environment of Scotland is its greatest tourism asset.
Tourism has the potential to bring benefits to the host community, the visitor, and the place itself.
Education through the tourism industry is vital if people are to develop a responsible attitude to the natural
environment, and a real commitment to reducing environmental impacts.
Tourism activities and developments should be appropriate to the size and character of their location.
Wherever possible, environmental initiatives should be run at a local level so that communities, individuals and local
businesses participate as self-motivated stakeholders.
The environment is a dynamic system. Change is inevitable and can have measurable benefits. We must be prepared
to adapt to change, but not at the expense of our guiding principles.
Public sector agencies must adopt a long term view of investment in tourism.
All tourism development, now and in the future, must be environmentally sustainable.
overall sense of place, and to the quality of a

visitors experience, and thus to greater success in
the business of tourism.
concept of revealing something, are what sets

interpretation apart from other communication.
Provoke thought
1.2 WHAT MAKES IT

INTERPRETIVE?
However you define interpretation, its all to do
with communication. There are clear guidelines to
what makes communication effective, established
through years of research in cognitive psychology.
What makes communication interpretive is less easy
to define.
Freeman Tilden described what he
considered to be six principles of
interpretation. Three of these are
particularly important. They are
that interpretation should provoke,
relate, and reveal. Getting
interpretation to relate to its
audience is largely about good
communication principles, and
section 7.1 gives a review of these.
Provoke has a lot in common with
getting people to pay attention in
the first place, but it can also
mean that you try to provoke
thought. This idea, and the
Theres an important difference between

interpretation and information. Information just
gives facts, but interpretation can provoke ideas,
perhaps even jolt people into a completely new
understanding of what they have come to see.
This sometimes means being controversial, but if
you send your visitors away buzzing with discussion
about your place, thats no bad thing!
Interpretation
about Grizzly
bears on
the North
West Trek,
Washington
State, USA.
The essence of good interpretation is that it

reveals a new insight into what makes a
place special. It gives people a new
understanding. If you have ever visited an
exhibition, or been on a guided walk, and
come away saying Well I never realised
that... or thinking Aha! Now I understand,
youve been an audience for some good
interpretation.
Insight can be emotional too remember
Freeman Tildens description of how
interpretation is about revealing beauty and
wonder. A guide who manages to make their
audience feel sorrow, empathy, or anger at the
plight of the victims of the Highland
clearances is a good interpreter; so is the
leaflet writer who can bring alive the history of
a derelict industrial area, and send visitors
away thinking it a fascinating place.
It would be wrong to suggest that all
interpretation can, or should, be like St Paul's
conversion on the road to Damascus.
Sometimes the ideas or insight visitors take
away can be quite simple. The thing to
remember is that interpretation does not
involve simply giving visitors facts: it aims to
give them new insights, ideas, and ways of
looking at or appreciating a place. You may use
facts to do this, but its the ideas which are
important.
There are no rules to follow which can
guarantee that what you are doing is truly
interpretive. Its also true that what is a new
insight for some visitors will be familiar to
others, but you should always aim to make the
information you have support an interesting
story or idea.
Themes
A theme organises your interpretation, and expresses
the idea you want people to take away with them.
This is different from the subject or topic of your
interpretation. For example, a naturalist might plan
to take a guided walk in summer, looking at wild
flowers. This is a huge subject, and could support a
number of themes. She might decide that she wants
people to leave the walk understanding that different
flowers use different strategies to attract the insects which
pollinate them. This would be a theme for her walk.
The theme does not mean, of course, that if she
suddenly sees a Golden Eagle during the walk she
should ignore it because it does not fit the theme.
She can point out the eagle, let her audience marvel
at it, and tell them a bit about it if she can. But she
then returns to the theme of the walk.
The receptionist
at Dunvegan
Castle helps
visitors to plan
their stay.
Using a theme like this does a number of things:

1. It helps to focus the naturalists work. From the
masses of facts which she could give her
audience, she can now concentrate only on those
which support her theme.
2. It helps her to structure the walk, and choose
where to stop. Without a theme, the walk
could become a collection of random stops with
no link.
3. It helps her audience by giving them a clear

thread, rather than a series of unconnected
facts. This makes it more interesting, and
more memorable.
Many television documentary programmes use
themes they look at a number of different subjects
or topics, but all of them support a central idea.
Rather than being limiting, themes expand the
possibilities for interpretation. There would be
dozens of possible themes which our naturalist
could choose for her walk, giving her material for a
whole programme of events! There is more about
working with themes in chapter 5.
1.3 OTHER AIMS FOR

COMMUNICATION
So far, weve concentrated on the heart of
interpretation sharing enthusiasm about a place
so that your audience will find it interesting too.
Strictly speaking, anything else is not interpretation,
but you will almost certainly want to communicate
with people to achieve other things. Here are
some ideas about what you may need or want to
do for your visitors:
Orientate
Before they can take an interest in what you want
to tell them, visitors need to feel at home. You will
almost always need to let them know what there is
to do in your area or site, how to get to the places
which interest them, and where important things
like toilets and cafes are. This applies whether you
are dealing with a building or an area of
countryside. Remember that people like to know
how long a particular activity will take as well as,
say, how many miles they will be walking.
You must also point out any safety hazards, and
places which people should not visit because they
are dangerous.
Inform
Theres a big difference between interpretation and
just providing information (see above, section 1.2).
Some visitors will want to know plain facts, but
they are usually a minority of your audience.
You can provide what they need cheaply and
simply. For example, the keen bird watchers at a
bird hide might want to know what birds they

might see today; some visitors to a distillery will be
interested in how many bottles an hour it produces.
You could meet the needs of these visitors, who
often have a special interest in the subject, by a
blackboard which you update weekly at the bird
hide; and a photocopied fact-sheet at the distillery.
Entertain
If you are in the tourism business, youll certainly
want to send visitors away feeling satisfied. If you
want to increase visits from tourists, you may well
want to think about how to provide fun things for
visitors to do as they explore your place. This
doesnt mean that interpretation is superficial or
trivial, but that it can play a part in schemes which
are essentially about enjoyment. Some interpretation
has a serious story to tell, such as the interpretation
at Ann Franks house in Amsterdam of how the
Jews were persecuted by the fascists. Even here,
however, interpretation must take account of the
fact that visitors are at leisure: it should be
accessible, rather than hard work.
Promote an organisation
Any organisation which puts money into your
interpretation is likely to want their contribution
acknowledged. Like the business of persuasion, this
is a perfectly valid aim, and it can be important for
an organisation to be identified as caring for or
managing a site.
Influence behaviour
Interpretation is often seen as a way of influencing
what people do. This might include encouraging
them to visit particular places, perhaps for
can help them find a new sense of pride in their own

area. For some projects, this may be the
most important thing of all, and any actual end
product only secondary.
This chapter has looked at what interpretation
is, at some principles which help to make
interpretation effective, and at some other aspects
of communicating with visitors which you may need
to think about. Youll probably have realised that
making interpretation work requires a bit of thought
and planning. The next chapter looks at whats
involved in that.
Persuade
Some organisations have a clear objective
to persuade people to do something or to influence
what they think about something remember the
origins of interpretation, in the movement to
establish the U.S. National Parks. The Royal Society
for the Protection of Birds might well want to
encourage visitors to join the Society; the operator
of a visitor centre at a nuclear power station will
aim to tell people how safe it is. If this seems one
sided, remember that what seems like common
sense to you may be controversial to others!
Explain
Sometimes its not possible for visitors to see the
whole of a site, or it may be in a mess because of
building or landscape work. Rather than just leaving
it at that, try giving visitors some explanation of
whats happening. While the new Museum of
Scotland was being built in Edinburgh, the National
Museums of Scotland provided windows in the high
wooden fence around the site through which
passers-by could see what was happening. Small
notices by each window explained what stage the
work had reached.
commercial reasons; diverting them away from other

places such as the fragile areas of a nature reserve; or
getting them to take their litter home. Again, these
are valid aims, but remember that they are not the
reason your visitor has come. You need a subtle
approach to influence people, which recognises and
meets their needs while at the same time getting
your message across.
Mount Rainier,
Washington
State, USA: a
sense of humour
helps when
youre trying to
influence peoples
behaviour.
Develop a local sense of place

Most interpretation is aimed at visitors from
outside the immediate area. But involving local
people in thinking about what makes their place
special, and how they might tell others about it,
2 Why plan interpretation?

Whether you are a group of individuals with a
common interest in a site or a subject, or whether
you are thinking of interpreting a place as part of
a community initiative, you need to plan what
you will do. An
interpretive plan is a
clearly written
statement to which
you can refer when
you need reminding
what you need to
do, or when you are
in danger of being
blown off track.
You can use it to
encourage others to
join you; and to
show others that
you know what you are doing. This is important
when you apply for funding from agencies or
sponsors: most of them will need to see that
the projects they are being asked to support are
well planned.
At its simplest, interpretive planning helps to
make your communication more effective. It also
means that you think about what else is happening
around your place: this can lead to interesting links
between sites in the area, and helps to avoid the
same story being offered several times over.
Interpretive plans can be part of larger plans for
tourism or economic development, or for the
physical management of a site. Planning involves
thinking about:
A complex area
like Aviemore
needs planning
to make sense
of all the
different stories
it has to tell.
Why you want to communicate with visitors;

Who your visitors are;
What your place is like, and what it has to offer;
What else is happening around;
What you want to say about your place;
How, and where, you are going to say it.
2.1 HOW A PLAN WILL HELP

YOU
Going through this process, and writing down
your decisions as a clear set of statements will help
you because:
You will have determined whether or not

interpretation of your subject is appropriate, and
what level of development you want.
You will have set yourself some clear objectives,

and know why youve embarked on the project.
You can refer back to this if or when confusion
creeps in.
Most interpretive plans cover more than just

communication with your visitors. Youre not only
planning for better communication, youre planning a
development and management process, a visitor
management programme and a visitor financial
programme. You may also be trying to achieve other
benefits related to conservation, sustainable tourism or
community development. Chapter 1 gives more detail
about these other issues.
A good plan is a public declaration of your intentions.
It will help you find out where you are, where you want
to be and how you are going to get there.
You will know who your audience is, and more

importantly who it is not, so that you can plan
your interpretation with a clear picture in
your mind of the people and groups you are
addressing. Many projects disappoint the people
who implement them because they fail to
communicate with large numbers of the general
public, or because they were subconsciously
designed to interest fellow professionals, few of
whom are in the actual audience.
You will have thought about where you want

to encourage visitors to go, and where you do
not want them to go, so that any fragile areas
are protected.
You will have considered what other

interpretation is offered in your area, and
planned your initiative to complement this
rather than duplicate or compete with it.
You will know what your themes are, so that

you, your committee and your helpers dont
have to sit for days recording every snippet of
potentially useful information about every
aspect of your place. You will also be forewarned
and forearmed when someone tries to offer you
a prized collection of objects which clearly dont
relate to the themes you want to present.
You will have a clear understanding of which

media are appropriate given the characteristics
of your place and its sensitivity; your likely
audience and how many of them you expect;
the themes you are presenting; and the
resources you have or can raise. Armed with this
you should be able to deflect or dissuade the
assertive member of your committee who has
their heart set on the latest in elaborate
multi-media shows.
2.2 FLOW THROUGH IT

Interpretive planning is a process in which the
information you gather, or the decisions you
make, about one issue will influence other issues
and decisions. The diagram opposite shows how
this works.
Start with some clear thinking about why you
want to provide interpretation: this will affect
everything else. Then decide who the interpretation
is to be for, and what it is about your place that you
want to interpret. You can then make informed
decisions about how youre going to do it.
Chapter 5 will help you work your way through
this process.
At some point you will also need to ask whether
the interpretation is working as planned, and make
any changes necessary to improve it.
Interpretation
at Cromarty
Courthouse
was planned to
complement other
developments in
the area.
Its not all logic

The diagram looks like a computer flow chart in
which each step leads logically to the next. As
you work on your plan, remember that good
interpretation is as much about creativity and
intuition as it is about logical decisions. You
might decide that a publication you can sell is
the best medium for your aims, your audience,
and the messages you want to get across. But to
make it work you will need some lively ideas
about the themes you will use, some sensitivity
towards what your audience will find interesting,
and a creative approach to what the publication
looks like.
How the issues connect

Planning interpretation means balancing many different issues. This diagram shows how they
can link together. You might enter this process at any point, but you must be sure that your
decisions about the issues in one box are consistent with those in the others.
Why are you doing this?

Your aims may be to do with:
What if we already know what we want to do?

Many groups start with an idea for something
in the what? box. Its quite possible to short
circuit the process like this, and for the idea
to be perfectly right for your situation. But
you do need to think about the issues in the
other boxes of the diagram, and to do some
honest appraisal of whether your idea really
fits with the information you gather.
This can only help your project. Thinking
about themes, for example (see pages 7 and
24), will always make your interpretation
more focused. In addition, any agencies
which you approach for funding will
expect you to show that you have thought
things through.
2.3 WHAT SORT OF PLAN?

Some plans are blueprints for action. They
identify what is needed, and set out how it will
be achieved. Others may be a strategic
framework for building consensus on your
objectives, for assessing and agreeing the
significance of sites, for applying for funding or
other resources, and for agreeing how finance
and staff are allocated. Chapter 3 gives more
detail on the types of plan which are possible.
increasing understanding
managing visitors
managing a site
improving the economy
What will you

interpret?
Who is it for?
You will need to think about:
You will need to think about

your visitors:
features which visitors can see

the unique stories your place
has to tell
places to which you must
control access
what is already interpreted
elsewhere
the themes you will use
characteristics
numbers
interests and expectations
length of stay
H o w w i l l you d o it ?
choice of media
location and timing of media
allocation of different themes to different places
interpretive objectives
style
H o w w i l l i t be ma na ged ?
staffing
skills
maintenance
materials
buildings
cash
Monitoring and evaluation
is it working?
is it achieving your aims?
how might you improve it?
10
3 What sort of plan?

Planning for the stones
Before you start work, think about what sort of

plan you need. You can choose to plan at one of
two levels: to produce a strategic statement; or a
detailed plan which will guide practical work.
And your plan can cover a specific site, or a
wider area. But you cant write an interpretive
plan unless you have something to interpret!
Interpretation helps visitors to experience a
place, to understand a topic or simply to enjoy a
view. If there is no story to tell, interpretive
planning becomes theoretical. It must be a
practical exercise with real benefits.
Urras nan Tursachan (The Standing Stones Trust) was formed in 1994 to promote archaeological tourism around the
monuments on the west side of the Isle of Lewis. The trust has used an interpretive plan for the Calanais Stone Circle
which outlined where a new visitor centre should be located, and the themes for its exhibition. Simon Fraser, chairman of
the trust, says:
The Interpretation Plan proved to be extremely beneficial to Urras nan Tursachan. As the trust embarked upon the
implementation of long term objectives for the development of the Calanais Visitor Centre the plan provided an excellent
framework for better management and public understanding. It also provided a focus for co-ordination on key interpretive
topics. The document was and continues to be a useful and effective guide for the trust.
3.1 STRATEGIC OR
DETAILED?
determining responsibilities for implementation,

management and staffing;
Interpretation strategies
Strategies set out clear aims and objectives, but
with limited detail. They give broad funding
arrangements and budgets, overall priorities and
timescales, and describe general management
responsibilities. This demands clear vision and
avoids a clutter of detail. Strategies are statements of
intent which can gain support for a course of
action. They are not programmes of work with
detailed costings.
A strategic plan aims to:
guide and co-ordinate the efforts of all those

who want to play a part;
ensure comprehensive coverage of a large area
deciding how you will know whether you have

succeeded - see Chapter 6.
developing their own interpretation. Alternatively, it
can pull together existing plans to develop a
cohesive approach and minimise duplication. It can
also provide a framework for detailed plans which
deal with particular sites or themes.
Detailed plans
For less extensive schemes or areas, a single site, or
individual projects within a strategic plan, you will
need a detailed interpretive plan which sets out a
programme of work. The plan should give enough
information to focus the proposals tightly so that
they can be put into practice. This means:
The Western
Isles Interpretation
Strategy provides
guidelines for
appropriate
development
at sites such as
Castlebay and
Barra.
or broadly-based topic;
establish guidelines for local, or subjectspecific, detailed plans;
prevent duplication of effort;

encourage appropriate networks.
A strategic plan is the best way of dealing with a
large area or a big subject. It gets everything in
perspective and gives everyone a chance to consider
the implications. It can provide an agreed structure
within which several organisations can work, each
giving clear objectives, with targets for

achievement;
specifying precise interpretive themes, content,

methods and media - see Chapters 5 and 7;
estimating all capital and running costs, and

sources of funds and revenue;
setting schedules for action within agreed

priorities;
The Highland Interpretive Strategy Project

Communities often want to plan interpretation so as to attract and enlighten visitors. They may also wish to learn more
about their own environment. The Highland Interpretive Strategy Project (HISP) is a community-based programme that
helps local people to develop interpretive facilities that may be as much for the benefit of local people as for their
visitors.
The project itself is a prime example of strategic interpretive planning. HISP has completed several detailed local
interpretive plans and a series of strategic area frameworks for interpretation across the Highland Council area.
The frameworks give guidance and networking opportunities to the agencies and organisations involved and now, along
with the local plans, aim to provide a comprehensive approach to interpretive planning throughout the Highlands.
11
When it comes to setting objectives, and especially

when identifying targets, make sure they are
realistic can you achieve them? and acceptable
to all those involved do you all agree? But dont
be faint hearted! Go for a little more than you think
you can achieve.
settlements, for example the Mearns or the East

Neuk. See the inset box on the West Lochaber
Interpretive Plan on page 14.
The visitor
centre at
Calanais,
developed
as part of an
interpretive
plan for the
site.
A site-specific plan is self-explanatory. It will be

a detailed document for an existing or a new
attraction or site, for example a historic house,
a wildlife reserve or a place like New Lanark.
See the inset box on the St. Andrews plan on
page 17.
3.2 PLANS FOR

DIFFERENT AREAS
The objectives and targets you adopt will
depend, of course, upon the scale of
your plan or where your work fits into
a larger-scale plan. Plans can be drawn
up at various levels:
A regional plan is likely to be strategic

and should be based on a region
which visitors and communities can
recognise. Geographical regions work
better than those following local
authority boundaries unless these
echo the geography, for example Fife,
or the island council areas. See the
inset box on the Highland
Interpretive Strategy opposite.
An area or local plan will deal with an

area easily identified by visitors and
residents and will usually be detailed.
It could cover a single community,
e.g. Kelso, Kirkcudbright or Fordyce,
or an area which includes several
12

proposed budgets and funding arrangements who might pay what for it;
priorities and timescales - when you hope it will

happen;
wider environmental improvement programme. You

might set targets for increased numbers of people
staying overnight, or taking part in local events, or
asking for more information at the Tourist
Information Centre.
organisation - the best way of managing it, and

who is going to do what to take it forward.
3.4 WHATS NEEDED IN A

DETAILED INTERPRETIVE
PLAN?
An interpretive plan for a city or large town
Camas nan
should be strategic, with detailed plans for

districts such as Stockbridge in Edinburgh, Old
Aberdeen, or Glasgows Merchant City.
Geall in
Lochaber.
There are no definite rules about what an

interpretive plan must contain. Its content will
depend on what you want it to achieve. The
following sections give some guidelines to what you
may need to include.
West Lochaber Interpretive Plan
Your audience
Consider the differences between day visitors and
those who stay longer, local people, children and
those with special interests (see chapter 5).
Your resources
Include an inventory of the resources you wish to
interpret (see chapter 5). You should set out all the
things which make your area or community
distinctive, important or interesting, at least as a
locality; why they should be described appealingly
to visitors; and how they could relate to visitors
own experience.
Your interpretive objectives and theme
The West Lochaber Local Interpretive Plan, covering Ardnamurchan, Ardgour and Morvern on the west coast of
Scotland, sets out a detailed approach to interpreting a large area with a small population and fragile economy.
Consultation with the local community, including visits to schools, identified the heritage resources of the area that local
people felt were important through voting for them. This led to agreement on some key sites, which were then assessed
for their suitability for interpretation. The natural and cultural character of West Lochaber, the infrastructure of roads and
accommodation, and patterns of visitor movement were also recorded before a main interpretive theme and sub-themes
were agreed.
Interpretive objectives are different from your

objectives for the process as a whole. They include
what you want people to know, to do, and to feel
about your place as a result of your interpretation
(see chapters 5 and 6 for more about this).
The plan must also record your chosen theme or
themes. Show how you intend to make the
interpretation cohesive.
Your methods
How will you communicate with your visitors?
Identify the different media that will bring the
interpretation to life: dont forget the role people can
play! (See chapters 4, 5 and 7).
Who will you involve?
The plan can record your consultation and liaison
arrangements. Include everyone you will need to
contact for information, collaboration, co-operation,
support and approval (see chapter 4).
How will you manage it?
Decide on your priorities and timescale. Show what
must be done, by when, if the plan is to succeed, as
well as what else could be done. Draw up a schedule
for implementation. Match this with your priorities,
funding and management arrangements.
Include your procedures for monitoring and
evaluating the interpretation when it is implemented
(see chapter 6).
Your organisational framework will need to show
who will be responsible for policy decisions, overall
direction, implementation, on-going management
and maintenance, as well as any staffing needs.
Remember that
features you
take for
granted, like
these rigs on
the Cromarty
Firth, may
be impressive
and unusual
to visitors.
This plan has been incorporated into the Area Framework for Interpretation and this in turn acts as the tool for delivery
within the Tourism Action Plan for Lochaber.
3.3 WHATS NEEDED IN

AN INTERPRETIVE
STRATEGY?
Stick to principles and broad tasks. Always
remember that its main purpose is to provide a
framework, not a completely detailed approach.
An interpretive strategy should include:
your aim - what you want to achieve - the

mission statement;
your objectives - why you want to achieve it

and for whom;
proposed mechanisms - how and where you
Your aim and objectives

Your aim should include your aspirations and
expectations, but temper realism with inspiration!
(and vice versa). You might want to determine
how to increase understanding of a famous local
persons contribution to medicine, the arts, or
engineering and how and why he or she achieved
distinction. Or you might want to set out how
interpretation could lead to more interest in
conserving a local area of great importance for wildlife.
Your objectives as sponsors should give the reasons
for your plan, the various outcomes or changes you
want to achieve, and clearly identified targets. You
might want to include, for example, how developing
an interpretive plan could draw the community
together, or retain visitors longer, or contribute to a
could achieve it;
13
14

Case study: Parish of Abernethy Local
Interpretive Plan
Under the guidance of the Highland Interpretive Strategy Project, local resident Elspeth Grant was commissioned to
produce a local interpretive plan for the Parish of Abernethy which straddles Badenoch and Strathspey.
Explore Abernethy, as it is now called, is a community initiative to record and interpret the cultural heritage of the area
and its unique association with the surrounding forest of native Scots Pine. It also aims to increase recreational
opportunities, provide a focus and orientation for visitors, and increase understanding of land management practices.
In 1997 the project registered as a Company Limited by Guarantee. Since then they have developed 35km of
woodland footpath network, signage, a walks leaflet, car parking and an All Abilities trail along the River Nethy. The
Explore Abernethy Room in the Community Centre provides visitor and local information, displays, a community corner
with seating, reference books, and displays of childrens work. A seasonal ranger staffs the Room and takes guided
walks.
A fund has been established to cover running costs, which include annual footpath maintenance, building running costs and
project management. Funds are raised through sales of the walk leaflet, a donation box and holding dances and other events.
Your costs
You will need to estimate costs for your
proposals. Include start up (capital) costs, all the
running costs, and sensible estimates of revenue
you will generate.
3.5 USING INTERPRETIVE

CONSULTANTS
If you dont want to do the whole plan yourself,
there are interpretation consultants who can
help. Consultants can provide advice and
recommendations at a number of levels. You
may wish simply to discuss your approach and
methodology, and gain confidence from professional
guidance. Alternatively, you may want consultants
to prepare a framework into which you can slot
local knowledge on specific sites and topics and
develop your choice of media.
If you wish, consultants can produce the
complete plan in consultation with you and the
community, leaving you to implement it. Whatever
route you choose, you must set the agenda and
prepare a clear brief.
3.6 HOW DOES

INTERPRETIVE PLANNING
LINK WITH OTHER
INITIATIVES?
Interpretation is a means to an end. It can
contribute to visitor management, conservation, the
15
local economy, education, community pride and so

on. Where possible, therefore, an interpretive plan
should dovetail with other activities and initiatives
to enhance their success, or gain from their
operation.
For example, interpretive planning and interpretation
should:
share objectives, markets, themes and

mechanisms with the marketing plan for a site,
an area or a region to ensure a consistency
of message;
be an integral part of strategic tourism

development and promotion initiatives;
Good
interpretation
helps tourist
attractions to
succeed, and
thus to
contribute to
the local
economy.
be linked to the planning, development and

Local schools
can be
involved in
planning
interpretation,
as well as
benefiting from
the end result.
operation of commercial heritage sites.

Interpretive planning and interpretation can
also contribute to:
- school curriculum work, and to wider education

at all stages of life;
- the development of recreation and the arts
- the economic development of an area through

increased tourism, more jobs, and a better
environment;
- strategic and local planning policies by

widening perceptions and introducing a
thematic approach; the process of urban or
environmental renewal.
locally or more widely;
St Andrews Interpretive and Visitor

Management Plan
The historic town of St Andrews is a busy community of around 15,000 people, but it is often swamped by seaside
visitors and golf enthusiasts. A number of agencies commissioned a detailed interpretive plan from a consortium of
consultants in which visitor management was a major element. The aim was to encourage visitors to move around the
town, to discover aspects they didnt know about and, of course, to stay longer and spend more.
A Tourism Management Programme has subsequently implemented many of the recommendations which form a closelyintegrated approach linking marketing, information and interpretation. An innovative series of orientation points is
supported by a specially-drawn map, new leaflets, a number of interpretive panels, guided walks and living history.
St Andrews is now part of a European Union partnership for sustainable tourism, using its interpretive and visitor
management plan as a working example of an approved approach.
16
4 Working with others

The first two chapters discussed what interpretation
was, and the benefits of interpretive planning.
The previous one outlined different approaches to
planning. But all of this work relies on people.
People are the participants in interpretation the
senders and the receivers of the interpretive
message. The relationship between people and the
places they live is often crucial to the message itself.
And most importantly, drawing up an interpretive
plan means working with people. This chapter looks
at things to think about as you do this.
If a plan is to have enough support to lead to
successful implementation, you will need to work with
a wide range of people. They will include:
Representatives
of agencies with a
statutory remit
relevant to your
work, and perhaps
with the ability to
fund it. Examples
include Scottish
Natural Heritage
and Historic
Scotland;
Representatives of
voluntary groups and
societies with an
interest in your area
or expertise in the
subject you want
to interpret;
Representatives of the communities in the area
Involve guest
house owners
in the plan:
visitors often
look to them
for information
about the area.
Communities include groups of people with

a common interest (for example fishermen and
hoteliers) as well as the people who live in
a place;
Individuals, including experts on particular

subjects, landowners, and business people.
Working with a local community and with a range of
agencies to develop an interpretive plan is not always
easy, and it can be a slow and frustrating business.
But it is important. Working successfully with your
community means that:
Local people will have some collective

ownership of the plan, and will support it rather
than oppose it.
17
The plan and its outcomes will be more

sustainable. People will be more interested in
seeing that the work is continued and
developed.
Interpretation can benefit from the vast amount

of local knowledge and skills which exist.
The plan can contribute to community

development. People may feel a greater sense
of self worth as a result of their involvement,
and there will be the opportunity to develop
new skills.
Working with agencies is important because:
you will need the expertise and knowledge of

statutory bodies to produce a meaningful plan.
Many projects will need approval from councils

and other bodies before they can be
implemented.
Agencies can provide an important overview of

what is happening on a regional scale.
This chapter gives some advice about how to
actively involve communities and agencies to
produce a plan which everyone can support.The
chapter assumes that you are an individual with a
particular interest in interpretation, and that you
have taken on the task of getting the plan going.
The approach you take, and the sections which are
relevant, will vary depending on whether you are
yourself a member of the community, or whether
you represent an agency.
local tensions, and the fact that they may seem

peripheral to what you want to do. You may know
people who are already influential and active in
the community the key players. Involve them as
much as possible, and help them feel that the
process is theirs. Where people have economic
influence, provide an economic justification for what
you are doing.
Groups are often cautious about adopting new
ideas and new approaches. You may need to spend
some time talking to people, and convincing
them that they have something to gain from a
planning exercise.
Even with this effort, there will be situations
where groups or individuals who apparently should
be involved stay on the outside. This is the nature of
communities everywhere. It is often nothing to do
with the plan, or the process itself, but is due to
other factors such as past history, or other agendas.
There is no such thing as a clean sheet when it
comes to the relationship of a community to its
heritage resources. The more you know about the
past history of the community the better you will
understand it when people sometimes do
inexplicable things.
The reality of community work is that few
members of the community get actively involved
the majority are happy to leave things to others,
unless they are particularly affected by a specific
proposal. People are usually fully involved in their

own lives. It is important, though, to give everyone
in the community the chance to contribute.
What about you?
One key player in all this is you! If you come from
a different part of the country, this may also affect
how willing people are to respond to your ideas.
If you represent the local council, or a statutory
agency, the way people respond to you may well be
coloured by their experience with the organisation
you represent.
This has nothing to do with you personally: its
again simply part of the way communities work. The
only way to deal with it is through patience, a lot of
listening and an honest, open approach.
4.2 WORKING WITH

AGENCIES
Find out the responsibilities of the local agencies.
The less you waste their time the more likely they
are to be positive towards your ideas. You will tend
to receive a friendlier response if you can provide a
concise outline of what you want, and how you
think the agency can help.
Agencies will only get fully involved if they can
see some merit to your approaches, and if your
Shops are often

good places
through which
to contact as
many people in
the community
as possible.
4.1 WORKING WITH

COMMUNITIES
There are two vital principles in working with
communities: invite as many groups and individuals
as possible to take part; and make sure that people
can see the point in being involved. Community
involvement which is just a token gesture leads to
resentment and apathy.
All community groups; all providers of
interpretation, both public and private; and all
those who are likely to be approached for funding
have to be part of the process. Ignoring or failing to
involve any of them may cause problems later.
Include people rather than exclude them, in spite of
18
4 Working with others
proposals are relevant to their work. The areas

covered by individual staff within each agency are
far wider than just your local community, so you
will have to sell the worth of what you propose. Try
to establish contact with the person in the agency
who is directly involved in your area, and be clear
how your proposals relate to their work.
Agency Initiatives
Often the impetus for a plan will come from an
agency, and involve other agencies in the process.
These plans may concern land or buildings owned
by the agency, and for which it has a legal
responsibility. Plans based on this approach often
run to a time scale that makes it difficult to
establish local community involvement. The result
is a top-down approach, rather than the developing
of projects from the community up.
Be inclusive here, just as at the community
level. Consultation is still important, because
heritage resources that are being interpreted are
seen by the community as theirs. If you do not
address this, there may be problems in the future.
Find whatever mechanisms you can to let the
community know what is happening, and get
comment from them even if you cannot set up a
full consultation process.
4.3 WORKING
STRUCTURES
You will need to establish a planning group that
develops a common understanding of the process
and a collective ownership of the outcomes.
Everyone in the group must know why the plan is
being produced, where the initiative has come from,
and how it relates to their particular interests. You
may need to spend some time discussing this before
everyone commits themselves to the process.
The group will function far more smoothly if it is
led by someone. This person doesnt necessarily
need to understand the full complexity of the
situation, but does need to be seen as nonthreatening and without significant biases. Think
of this person as an honest broker or a local
champion. Without this leadership, managing the
group can be difficult as everyone will bring a
degree of bias, and a personal agenda to the debate.
There may be someone in an existing group, such
as the Community Council, who can take on this
role, but beware of existing group tensions that may
be under the surface.
Encourage individuals, or establish sub-groups,
to deal with particular aspects in which they have
skills or a specific interest. Remind them, however,
Six tips for working with the community

Get a feel for the community go in with your eyes and mind open. There will be agendas of which you are not
aware and some elements within the community may use the plan to achieve their particular aims, which may be
different from yours. Be open, and aim to build confidence and trust between groups and agencies.
Be clear as to what the plan can achieve. It will not solve the problems of the universe issues like employment,
housing and land ownership cannot be actively addressed by an interpretive plan, but the plan may help to develop
a greater sense of collective ownership of cultural, historical and natural resources in the community. A greater
degree of self-belief in a communitys ability to influence events in the future may be an outcome of a well structured
planning process.
Make sure that everyone involved is clear about what they wish to achieve from the process. Asking each player to
identify what they hope to achieve will help to develop common objectives that everyone can endorse. The areas
where difficulty can arise are where protection of heritage resources is seen by some to be compromised by economic
development, or vice versa. Aim to maintain an open dialogue about these issues, and to build confidence and
understanding.
Encourage people to be involved in the developing plan. Use their skills to work on specific tasks: this will help them
feel part of the process and build their commitment to its outcome.
Keep people informed at all stages of the progress of the plan. Perhaps you can produce a brief newsletter every
couple of months. If people do not know what is going on, they will quickly lose interest.
Think about providing transport, or at least travel expenses for people to attend meetings, especially in
remote areas.
19
that what they produce is part of the overall

process. Their work may be chopped and changed
by the collective will of the group, and everyone
must accept this.
4.4 TIMESCALE
Allow plenty of time for both producing the plan
and implementing it. Failure to provide this
inevitably results in corners being cut and
important contacts and discussions being missed.
All of these short-cuts can lead to blocks in the
process, and result in a flawed product which may
not address the objectives of key players.
It is difficult to suggest the time necessary for an
interpretive plan as they vary so much in scale
and complexity, but an exercise in community
involvement will take at least three months. Before
this you will need perhaps one month to speak to
the key agencies and groups. At the other end
of the process, give those involved adequate time to
consider the proposals before the plan is finalised
at least two months.
As a rough guide, if you want to involve the
community and all relevant groups in the process,
you will need at least six months to produce a
meaningful plan. You may need longer in areas
where communities are very remote or dispersed.
4.5 AFTER THE PLAN

Working with people doesnt stop when your plan
is finished. The point is not to produce a plan, but
some interpretation! As you reach the end of the
planning process, think about how you can keep
some impetus going, and ensure that the plan is
used as a working document which really does
guide and shape what happens.
You may need to establish a working group who
will keep the project moving. It need not include
everyone who has been involved in preparing the
plan, but it should represent those who are most
concerned with, or most likely to be affected by,

its outcomes. This group has a vital role to play, for
they must see that projects which are implemented
reflect the decisions made in the plan, rather than
being carried out in an ad hoc way. Obviously
there must be some flexibility as you deal with the
realities of getting work done, but the plan must
provide a point of reference for checking that
what you are doing really does fulfil the needs
you identified.
Information
from specialists
will be
important in
your research.
A plan for Nairn

The Nairn Tourism Management Programme is managed by a partnership of 12 public, private, community and
voluntary organisations. The partnership set up an Interpretive Working Group to pursue an interpretive plan
prepared by consultants in 1994. The plan set out clear objectives and established a theme. The past and future
of Nairn is the story of its relationship with the sea.
The Working Group was able to set up a European funding package to implement the plan and by 1996 most of
the recommended elements were in place (leaflets, panels, themed play equipment, reduced signage clutter etc).
The Group still meets and is involved in evaluation and in supporting the final element of the plan a bid from a
private operator to build a visitor centre incorporating the local museum and TIC on the harbour front.
20
5 Pu t t i n g t h e p l a n t o g e t h e r
This chapter covers what you need to do to
produce your interpretive plan. This will vary
depending on the type of plan you need, what
you want it to achieve, and who is involved (see
chapters 3 and 4), but there are some questions
which almost all plans need to address. They will
help you to produce better interpretation, help
other people to understand what you want to do,
and help to get support for your projects.
Chapter 3 suggests the possible contents of a
plan. Those contents involve getting answers to
the following questions:
rare survivor of its type. You will certainly want to

interpret these, and they are the sort of thing which
visitors will be curious about too.
But whether something is significant or not can
depend on your viewpoint. You can find out what
others think is significant from books, and through
consulting some of the organisations listed in the
appendix. But if you ask local children what they
think is significant about a place, youll probably
come up with some very different answers. Old folk
who have lived all their lives in a village will have
other stories to tell. If you want your interpretation
to reflect the real character of a place, its worth
getting opinions from those who live there about
what they would like to show visitors. Pages 32 and
33 describe a way to do this.
You will not be able to include every suggestion
which is made, but if your interpretation can
include something of what local people regard as
special, it will give them a sense of ownership of
what the visitors are told. It may also give visitors a
greater sense
of the unique
character of
that place.
Why do you want to provide interpretation?

What are you going to interpret?
Who is it for?
How are you going to do it?
Who will own the interpretation, and make sure
it is properly maintained or delivered?
How will you know if you have achieved what

you wanted to do?
As the diagram on page 11 shows, the questions are
linked, and it may help to bear this diagram in
mind as you read this chapter.
5.1 WHY DO YOU

WANT TO PROVIDE
INTERPRETATION?
This is the most important question of all.
Interpretation can play a part in heritage
management, tourism, and community development
schemes. Its essential that all those involved agree
what a project is for, and who will benefit from it.
State your aims as clearly as possible, and spend as
much time as you need to get a set of aims which
everyone can agree. Aims are like the foundations of
A plan for
this nature
reserve must
take account of
its conservation
needs.
a house: if they are ambiguous, or if people have

differing views which have not been discussed, you
could find yourself facing major structural repair
bills later on! Your aims are also important as part of
the baseline for checking that your interpretation is
doing what you want it to do (see chapter 6).
If you arent sure what your aims are, check back
to 8 and 9 for a description of the things you could
be thinking about. You will need to think about
aims for visitor management where people can be
encouraged to go, at what times and in what
numbers, as well as about what sort of services you
want to provide and why these are necessary.
Remember that all interpretation needs to be about
something interesting. If you havent got a good
story to tell, perhaps you need other solutions to
your needs.
Interpretation
at Discovery
Point in
Dundee must
attract as
many visitors
as possible.
Research
5.2 WHAT ARE YOU GOING

TO INTERPRET?
At any one place, your interpretation could cover a
vast number of subjects. An interpretive plan must
define what is worth interpreting for your place.
To do this, you need to find out what is significant
about it, select the features which you feel visitors
will find interesting, and decide what it is you
want to tell them about those features. As part of
this, you must also consider how much, and
where and when, to encourage access to the
features you select.
Try to find
out what
makes a
special place
for all
age groups.
As you
investigate
what is
significant, try
to do as much
research in
primary
sources as
you can. This
means going back to original documents: letters
written at the time you are researching; estate
archives; old publications. Doing this will give you
more insight into the people concerned, and may
produce interesting quotations or pictures which
you can use in the interpretation. It also means that
you can start to add your own conclusions about

what happened in history to the viewpoint given
in books.
Original
historical texts
are powerful:
at Cromarty
Courthouse,
Sir Thomas
Urquhart
speaks
extracts from
his writings.
What is worth looking at?

As you draw up your list of possible resources to
interpret, keep asking yourself the question Will
visitors really find this interesting? There must be
evidence for people to see which can support your
story. If there isnt anything to see, its hard to get
people interested. If you do have a strong story to
tell without much evidence, you may be able to
bring it alive by using replica artefacts, pictures to
look at, theatre, or live demonstrations.
Look after the site
As you think about what to interpret, be aware that
your visitors will probably want to go and explore
the place for themselves. As you draw up a list of
places which you would like to interpret, check:
can people get there easily? If not, can you

provide access? Be sensitive about this: it doesnt
mean driving a tarmac road to within three feet
of every feature! You will, however, need to think
about how people will arrive, and in what
numbers. If necessary provide parking space
and paths.
A significant muddy bank
What is significant?
The first step in answering the question what are
you going to interpret? is to ask what is significant
about this place? There may be obvious things: it
may have a spectacular geological feature; perhaps
it was the centre of a large medieval religious
community; or there may be a building which is a
21
English Nature wanted to raise public awareness of Earth science SSSIs sites protected because of their special
geology. They selected a number of sites they thought were particularly exciting, and planned to put up a panel at each.
One of the sites was an old railway cutting, used as a cycleway, where studies of an exposed bank of shale had helped
to establish important principles of modern geology. To a geologist, the site was unique. But to anyone else, it looked
like a muddy bank. A personal guide could have brought the importance of the place alive, but it would have been
difficult to do this with a panel. In addition, the bank was overgrown with bushes, which would have needed cutting
back every year. English Nature decided that it was not worth interpreting this site to the general public, but that they
would produce notes for students and teachers instead.
22
Do not interpret this site!
Imagine what it would be like if every viewpoint in the Highlands had a panel describing the features you could see, or
if signs pointed the way to every abandoned croft, with a leaflet dispenser providing brief histories of the Clearances.
As you look at your list of fascinating places, and start to dream of all the exciting interpretation you could provide,
remember how much fun it is to discover a place which feels as if no-one else has ever been there. Be sensitive to the
atmosphere of your place, and leave plenty for people to discover for themselves.
Are there sensitive areas of your site which are

interesting, but which are too fragile for you to
encourage visitors there? You will need to
consult the agencies listed in the appendix to
help you here. If there are areas like this, can
you find a way to interpret them without people
going there?
Make an inventory
You may find it useful to record the features you
could interpret. Making an inventory of features can
help you to see connections between them. It can
help you see where you need to do more research.
The inventory can also act as a record which is
open to everyone involved: it means that the plan
isnt all in one persons head.
The atmosphere
of Rackwick
Bay on Hoy
can speak for
itself. Do not
try to interpret
everything.
What else is happening?

Good interpretation complements, rather than
duplicates, other initiatives. So think about what
else is happening in your area. It may be that some
interpretation already exists about your place. If you
have control over it, do you want to replace it
completely, or plan something to add to it? If you
dont have control over it, try to involve those who
do. You can agree a co-ordinated approach, so that
you both present different aspects or themes about
the place. Perhaps a new display of farming tools at
a museum can be linked with a programme of open
days at a local farm, and a series of guided walks,
led by a ranger service, looking at how the
landscape has been shaped by farming.
You also need to look at the wider area. Many
visitors will see your place as just one spot in their
tour of a region. Many places in that region may
have similar stories to tell. For example, most
villages along the south coast of Fife have features
which tell the story of their history as fishing ports.
But there would be no point in every village trying
to set up a visitor centre about the history of
fishing. An interpretive strategy for this area would
need to identify where particular aspects of the
story could best be told, and which media would
work best in which places. It might also identify a
completely different story for some places.
5.3 MAKING SENSE OF IT ALL

At the end of this process, you will probably end
up with enough possible subjects to fill several
small books. If you try to present every
interesting aspect of your place, your visitors will
be overwhelmed, or bored, and probably both.
The essence of interpretation is to capture the
essence of a place, not to tell people everything
there is to know. You must make choices about
what you will interpret, and this will involve
some drastic editing from all the material you
could gather.
Planning interpretation across a whole area like this

needs creative thought, and good co-operation
between those involved. The end result, however, is
better for both the visitors and the communities
providing the interpretation.
Themes
You also need to think about the themes which will
express what you want to say about your place.
Chapter 1 looked at themes: they are statements
which unite different strands of information, and use
an idea or concept as a way of understanding a
place. Themes help you to organise and edit your
material, and they make sure that you have thought
about what you want visitors to understand, rather
than just giving them unconnected facts.
Themes for interpretation of a wide area usually need

to be general. For example, the group managing
interpretation for Nairn Seafront wanted to interpret
various topics: the towns natural heritage, the
fishing history, and the development of tourism in
Victorian times. The interpretive plan suggests that
all interpretation along the seafront should support
this main theme:
The past and future of Nairn is the story of its
relationship with the sea
This unites all the subjects which the group wanted
to interpret. It forms an overall idea which visitors
should take away with them. Within this, specific
sites have individual themes. For example, a series of
panels along the seafront includes these themes:
Themes should:
Nairn developed as a fashionable resort for rich
be stated as a complete sentence;

contain one main idea;
people in Victorian times.
The rock pools here are an unusual environment
reveal what the interpretation is about;

be as interesting as possible;
be as specific as possible.
along this otherwise sandy coast.
The coastline around Nairn is changing rapidly

as sand is moved by currents, tides, and storms.
Themes take practice

Working with themes can take a bit of practice. Try these ideas to help you get the hang of it.
The Theme Generator
1. Start by completing the sentence Generally, my presentation (talk, exhibit, etc) is about
This will be a general topic, like a library classification, for example birds.
2. Write another sentence, this time beginning Specifically, I want to tell my audience about
Perhaps you might write nocturnal birds.
.
.
3. Do the same again, this time completing the sentence After hearing my presentation (or reading my exhibit, etc.), I
want my audience to understand that
.
This time, what you write is a theme; a sentence in its own right, for example: because theyre rarely seen, nocturnal
birds are the subject of many superstitions
(From Environmental Interpretation, by Sam Ham)
What about it?
If youve written a good theme, you shouldnt have to ask the question So what? or What about it? Try it on the
examples above. Birds or Nocturnal Birds are not themes, because you can still ask What about them? The third
sentence gives the answer, and the real point of what the interpretation is about.
(Theres more about themes in many books in the reading list, particularly those by Bill Lewis, Sam Ham
and John Veverka.)
23
24
These themes are about facts, but themes can cover ideas
or attitudes as well. For example:
text by these explained what it was like to work in

the mills.
Life for the children working in this factory
5.4 WHO IS IT FOR?
was hard.
If this butterfly is to survive, it will need our

help.
Try to find themes which are special to your area.
A theme like This landscape has been shaped by
millions of years of erosion and thousands of years
of human activity is all very well, but it could
apply to anywhere in the United Kingdom. If you
feel that your theme is too general, try breaking
it down into a number of sub themes which are
more individual.
This question is easily overlooked in your

enthusiasm to tell visitors all about a subject or a
place in which you are passionately interested.
The trouble is, your visitors may not share your
passion yet. Remember that, for most visitors, you
are providing something for their leisure time, not
because they want to study your place. People who
visit because they do have to study it, such as
school children or students, may well use
interpretation, but the main audience is people who
come to a place because they think it will be part of
an enjoyable day out.
portrait as you can of your visitors. You may find it

useful to think about them in relation to these
questions:
Who are they?

What are they expecting?
What do they already know about your place?
How long will they stay?
Drusillas, in
East Sussex,
has a lot of
family visits and
provides exhibits
specially for
children. Adults
enjoy them too!
Agree to disagree
As you think about the themes which you could
use, you may find that different people have
different views. Sometimes these might be quite
opposed. For example, here are two possible themes
about a wind turbine:
Or where would you like them to go?

Who are they?
The old parish
church, Bettyhill,
now Srathnaver
museum.
what they can do, and where the toilets are. It also
means matching what you provide to the sort of
experiences they are looking for. Someone going to
an internationally famous historic site like Culloden
Think about simple characteristics of your visitors

such as whether they are young or old; locals or
visitors from elsewhere; and which country they
come from. This may lead you to provide different
Some places have a special significance. Churches and battlefields are examples of places which can have a deep
emotional meaning for visitors, and you need to be sensitive to this. Your themes will need to respect this aspect of the
place, but those who have come on some kind of pilgrimage will probably not want to be told much about it: they
already know why it is special. If you are dealing with a place like this, consider how you can provide for those who
simply want to absorb the atmosphere, and for whom interpretation might be an intrusion. Many churches provide an
area where people who want to use the church for prayer and meditation can sit, away from the tourists who have come
to see the church as a cultural monument.
Wind generated power will litter the countryside with

ugly towers.
This has vital implications for what you offer,

and how you offer it. Visitors come with
expectations of their own: you need to meet these
before you can hope that they will take an interest
in what you have to tell them. At a basic level, this
means providing information about where they are,
Interpretation and local people

Sometimes its important to encourage local people to take an interest in your place. You might have a country park on
the edge of a city which youd like people to care for, or you might feel that a shared sense of local heritage would
help the community feel strong.
In this case , you will need different approaches from those you might use for visitors. Local people are regular visitors,
so interpretation media such as panels will quickly be ignored. Instead, think about ways to involve people in
discovering and recording their heritage for themselves, perhaps through putting together a booklet of local stories. Or
plan a series of events which will encourage people to meet, and explore the place. You might, for example, work on a
village or community map to show local stories and plan favourite places.
25
Where will they go after they leave your place?
Special Places
Wind generated power is the answer to societys energy

needs.
If you find that you come up with differing

approaches like these, think about presenting both
sides of the story. Remember that interpretation can
aim to provoke discussion! A museum in Lowell, a
large cotton mill town in Massachusetts, USA, did
this by featuring two blocks of text on each of their
interpretation panels. One block was accompanied
with a picture of a man in a top hat: text beside
this told the story of how magnates had built the
town. The other showed a workman in shirtsleeves:
Who do they come with?
would expect a large, fully equipped visitor centre. In

a small market town they might appreciate a few
simple information panels on buildings of interest. At
a picnic spot on a quiet country road, they
might feel that they simply want to appreciate
the atmosphere of remoteness and peace: a panel
about the plants by the roadside could spoil
that experience.
Since most visitors havent come to study your
place in depth, you also need to make sure that your
interpretation is pitched at the right level something which is interesting, but not too
specialised or detailed.
What are your visitors like?
If you want to get your message across, you must fit
your interpretation to your visitors needs,
characteristics and interests. Build as detailed a
interpretation for different categories: either different

media, such as activity games designed for children,
or publications in other languages; but you may also
find that you can present different aspects of your
place so as to interest various categories of visitor.
What are they expecting?
Its essential to know why visitors are coming to your
place. It may be that they come because they know
its interesting, and that they have a general idea why
visitors to Stirling Castle know that they are
visiting a place which has played a part in Scotlands
history over hundreds of years. They may not know
much about exactly what that part was, but many of
them will expect to be told something about it.
Many visitors, though, dont have a particular
interest in what a place is apparently about they
simply want a day out. The interpretive plan for the
26
Nairn Seafront Tourism Management Programme

had to address this. Most visitors to Nairn were
coming for a day out by the sea, and werent
Another thing to think about here is when people

come. Dont plan your guided walks programme for
Saturdays if youre in a tourist area, where most
visitors leave or arrive on Saturdays. If you have a
high proportion of regular or repeat visitors, youll
need to think of ways to provide interpretation
But you may also get visitors who know very little.
In this case, you need to think about two separate
projects, one to suit the keen bird watchers, and
How do you feel about creepy-crawlies?
How many visitors?
They found that, in general, people either didnt really care about arthropods, or felt hostile towards them. Far from
putting the team off, this led them to plan the exhibition as an accessible, high profile event, which aimed to make
arthropods interesting, and to get away from their creepy-crawly image.
What do they already know about your place?

If your place is somewhere to which people come
because they know its interesting, think about the
level of interpretation and information which they
might want. If you have a site which is famous for
bird watching, you will probably have many visitors
who know a lot about birds. They will want
information rather than interpretation: what birds
have been seen this week, where there are other
good sites, how many reed buntings are breeding
on the site this year.
27
one for more casual visitors. Perhaps you can

provide photocopied sheets or a white board listing
the species seen for the birders, and a display which
explains migration patterns for others. Remember to
tell people where they can find more information if
they are interested: good interpretation might lead
them into a life-long hobby.
Before they put up large exhibitions, some
museums carry out research on what visitors know
and feel about the subject. This helps them plan
the content, and the style of the interpretation. You
may not have the resources to do a major survey,
but its worth thinking about the amount of
background you may need to give to your subject,
and how you can cater for different levels of interest.
How long will they stay?
It may seem obvious, but there is no point in
providing an exhibition which takes three hours to
get round if people tend only to visit your site for
half an hour. Of course, one of your aims may be to
encourage people to stay longer, but you need to
be realistic about what you can achieve. A typical
time budget for most visitors at any one site is an
hour and three quarters. This includes time to have
a cup of tea; the most they will spend looking
round an exhibition is about an hour to an hour
and fifteen minutes.
If you are planning facilities for a whole area,
and you want to encourage visitors to stay for a day
or two, work together with other places in the area
and try to provide things to do which range from a
half-hour visit to a whole day excursion. Make sure
that interpretation at different sites has some
variety in its subject and theme. Different sites
should complement each other rather than
duplicating effort.
things to study in more depth if your visitors are

individuals, or small groups without children.
Curators at the Natural History Museum in London wanted to put on a new exhibition about arthropods (insects,
spiders and crustaceans). They talked to 145 visitors to get an idea of how much people knew about these creatures,
and held discussion groups about what people felt about them.
expecting any interpretation. The organisations

involved in the programme wanted to add to the
towns appeal by raising awareness of its history
and of the wildlife in the Moray Firth, and to
encourage people to explore a little in the
countryside around the town. So the interpretive
plan suggested ways of introducing these subjects
while visitors were doing what they had come for:
strolling along eating an ice cream, or playing
seaside games. The plan proposed a series of panels
on the promenade, with very little text, and crazy
golf hazards which included rock pool shapes and
marine life. The golf hazards dont need to include
any text giving facts about wildlife, they simply
remind people about the sea and what lives in it.
A visitor centre would not have been appropriate,
because the nature of the site, and visitors
expectations, did not justify it.
Another factor to think about is how people find
out about your place. If they have read about it in a
book or a leaflet, they may well have expectations of
what it will be like and what they will be able to do.
You need to meet those expectations if they are to
go away satisfied; you also need to meet their
expectations before you can get across any messages
you may have.
well as adults. Adults often explain things to

their children, but if the family groups include a
lot of teenagers, it might be a good idea (though
a challenge) to provide something for them to do
without accompanying adults;
At Mount St
Helens in
Washington
State, USA,
Ranger Bill
Putaansuu can
provide more
varied and
flexible
interpretation
than the panels.
which changes every now and then. No matter how

interesting an exhibition is, people wont read it
more than a couple of times!
Who do they come with?
If you can, plan interpretation which takes account
of the sort of groups in which your visitors arrive,
and which encourages them to interact with that
group. This means dividing your visitors into market
segments, and thinking about what each grouping is
likely to enjoy. As a broad guideline, consider
providing:
something which involves social interaction for

visitors who arrive in large groups;
activities for families which involve children as
The characteristics of your visitors will lead you to

decisions about the style and approach of your
interpretation. How many of them you expect, or
want, will influence what sort of facilities you
provide, the size of any buildings, and how many
leaflets to have printed. If you expect large numbers,
especially large numbers at any one time, you will
need to do some detailed thinking about how to
manage people so that the site does not feel too
crowded, and so that there enough toilets, seats in
the cafe, and so on.
You also will need to think about how visitors
arrive at your site. Many will come by car, and you
will need adequate parking space for them. But
sustainable tourism needs to encourage other forms
of transport: how can you encourage people to use
something other than the car as they explore?
Sources of information
If you want accurate and detailed information about
the characteristics of the visitors who come to your
place, you will need to do some survey work. In
most cases you will be able to make a start by asking
around. Local hoteliers and guest house keepers
will know their visitors well. Ask several of them for
their opinions to avoid the possibility of bias from
only one.
Your local tourist board should have statistics on
how many visitors come to your area, and when.
Wa l k i n g f r o m t h e t r a i n t o t e a
The Tarka project in Devon wanted to stimulate tourist use of stations along the Tarka Line, a branch railway line
between Exeter and Barnstaple. They also wanted to encourage visitors to explore, on foot, some of the small villages
which lie just a few miles either side of the line.
A walk was devised which links a station to one of the villages, and the route details were made available from a tea
room near the station. These details were produced very cheaply a map and route description were simply
photocopied, and encapsulated in PVC.
The tea room owners charge a small deposit for this route card: this encourages people to return it for others to use. It
also means the tea room can satisfy the by now thirsty and hungry walkers!
28
Identifiable audience
group
What interests or
expectations do they
have?
Local families on a day

out
open air play;

a picnic
know the area well, though

not its wildlife importance
weekly
c. 1
Holiday makers without

children
viewpoint over city;

a short stroll amongst
trees
none
one-off or yearly
c. 45 minutes
I think about who the participants will be and what prior knowledge and experience they have. I also think carefully about my
aims, and what I want the group to do after the walk.
up to four hours
For a walk aimed at families, who may only have a passing interest in birds, I try to get them involved in activities which allow
them to discover more about familiar birds, and which may give them more of an interest in other birds. For example, most
people have seen blackbirds search for food amongst dead leaves, but they dont know what they are actually finding. I might
give out bug boxes, and ask people to look for the creatures that are hidden in the leaf litter.
Group from bird watching check for seasonal

species; see visiting
clubs
rarities
What background knowledge

about your place do they
have?
high
How often do they visit? How long do they stay?
every 3 months
1/
hours
Different people, different interpretation
Media
You will have realised by now that not all your

visitors will fall conveniently into one category,
and that one piece of interpretation, for example
a leaflet, cannot cater for all possible visitors.
In an ideal world, each individual would find
interpretation that was just right for their interests,
for the length of time they wanted to spend, and
which meant they had an enjoyable time with their
companions. Personal interpretation, by guides or
demonstrators, can come close to achieving this
(see chapter 7).
Most of the time, however, you will need to
decide which groups are important, and plan
interpretation for them. If you have a complex mix
of visitor characteristics, use a chart like the one at
the end of the book to help you identify the different
groups, and to decide which ones are your priorities.
Part of the chart might look something like the
example above for a country park on the edge of a
large town, which includes a viewpoint over the town
and a good bird watching area.
Chapter 7 gives an outline guide to some common

media. What you choose must balance what you
feel is appropriate for your audience, for your
budget, for the story you want to tell, and most
importantly for the site. Remember, the media you
choose will become a part of the place. If you feel
that the ruined castle on the loch has an
atmosphere of mystery which would be spoiled by
an interpretive panel, have the courage to leave it
undisturbed. Perhaps the local pub could put up a
picture of the castle, with a brief note about its
history. That way the castle remains a place for
visitors to discover for themselves; its history is
easily available; and the publican has a good talking
point with their customers.
Remember that for some media you must choose
where they will go. If you are writing a detailed site
plan, be as precise as you can about this. In the case
of publications, make sure that you think about
how you will store, distribute and display them. For
media which are time based, such as programmes of
guided walks, decide when they will be offered.
5.5 HOW ARE YOU GOING TO

INTERPRET?
Your plan needs to include decisions about what
media you will use. A strategic statement on
interpretation may make broad suggestions to
guide future developments; while a detailed site
plan will include specifications for what each
different medium should achieve, together with
budgets and schemes for how the interpretation
will be managed.
Themes and objectives

A final detailed plan should also specify what
message each piece of interpretation should
communicate: its theme (see above). In
programmes of guided walks, you need to leave
room for the leaders to plan their own approach,
but for panels and leaflets the copy writer and
designer need a clear brief as to what you want to
achieve. This applies even if you, or someone else
in the community, is the writer and designer!
Be creative with interpretation

Interpretation doesnt have to be something tangible, like panels or leaflets. The Crossings, or Cuirm Cuain, festival involved
events such as storytelling, music, and talks, which were offered to passengers on the ferries running between the Scottish
mainland and the islands during the summer. The events all had a focus on the relationship between people and the land
providing an unobtrusive way of interpreting the place to which people were travelling, and an insight into its culture.
29
Bug boxes or feathers different

interpretation for different groups
Fiona Mathieson, a ranger with the National Trust for Scotland at Crathes Castle, takes very different approaches to her walks
depending on who is coming on them.
Local RSPB members have a good knowledge of birds. For this group, my approach would be to get them thinking about
where birds fit in to the wider scheme of things. For example, they could try to discover what the local birds of prey are eating
by trying to identify the feathers left by sparrowhawks, or by examining the contents of owl pellets. This group might also be
interested in the conservation work we are involved in, and with their expertise might be able to offer some constructive advice!
Objectives
- they wanted large houses to stay in;
Each piece of interpretation also needs specific

objectives for what it is to achieve. Objectives are
important when it comes to checking whether your
interpretation is working or not you wont be able
to find out unless you know exactly what you are
trying to do! Objectives can cover any one, or any
combination, of these things:
- stone from the quarry by this panel was used to

build them.
what you want people to know as a result of

your interpretation;
what you want people to feel as a result of

your interpretation;
what you want people to do as a result of

your interpretation.
In many cases your objectives will include, or be the
same as, your themes. Since the theme is the overall
idea which you want people to take away with them,
your objectives may also be more detailed. For
example, the panel in Nairn mentioned above, about
the development of tourism in Victorian times, might
have the following theme and objectives:
At least 30% of people reading the panel will be

interested in seeing the Victorian villas in the
town.
There is more about objectives in the following chapter.
You may want to devise themes and objectives for
all the media yourself, but most interpretation writers
and designers can help you with this when you come
to implementing the scheme. This can be useful,
since they bring an outside perspective which is
closer to that of a visitor. For major projects, most
designers will want to have some flexibility, so that
they can contribute their own ideas and strengths to
the project. Be sure, however, that you build in time
to talk through and approve their ideas.
Musicians
Management
embarking for
You should also consider how your projects will be

managed. This will include where the money is going
to come from, and who is responsible for supervising
Festival: more
the Crossings
harmonious
than a panel.
Theme

people in Victorian times.
Objectives
People reading the panel will understand that:

-

people;
30
progress. Most
importantly, the plan must
include a scheme for
maintaining the project
once it is complete. If you
want to have leaflets on
display in the local shop,
who will make sure that
the leaflet rack is kept
full? If there is to be a
panel, who will check it
every couple of weeks, and repair any damage? If
you want a visitor centre, who will staff it, clean it,
and be responsible for the bills? Who will be
responsible for repairs and redecorating?
Interpretation
which is not
maintained
is worse
than providing
nothing.
5.6 HOW WILL YOU KNOW IF

YOU HAVE ACHIEVED WHAT
YOU WANTED TO DO?
You started your plan by deciding on clear aims for
what you wanted to achieve through interpretation.
By the time you produce your interpretation, you
will have put in a lot of effort and thought, and you
may well have spent a considerable amount of
money. It makes sense to check whether you have
got the result you were hoping for. Perhaps the
most important thing is to check whether you are
on course before you finally commit your money
to test the text of panels, leaflets and exhibitions
before they are made up. The next chapter looks at
ways to do this.
Think about this from the start, so that the

interpretive plan includes some ideas of how you
will evaluate what you are doing, and so that you
allow time, and perhaps money, to do it.
5.7 LINKS BETWEEN

QUESTIONS
You will have guessed that all these questions cant
really be considered in isolation. The answers to
one influence the decisions you take for another. If
you have a patch of the Caledonian Forest next to
your village, with masses of wildflowers in summer,
you could provide a trail through it if you have a
small number of visitors who come in small groups.
But if you want to attract thousands of visitors to
help the local economy, that wouldnt be an option.
Remember the diagram on page 11 which
showed links between the questions. The process
isnt a regular logical progression: you need to
weigh up all the information, consider how it all fits
together, and be prepared to change your mind
about ideas which seemed good at the beginning
but which dont make sense once youve thought
about other factors.
5.8 INVOLVING THE

COMMUNITY
Ideally, local interpretive plans should involve your
community as much as possible. This ensures that
future developments are, as much as possible,
Community participation identifying resources

This is how the Highland Interpretive Strategy used a community participation exercise. You could adapt this for your own
circumstances.
Members of the community, including school groups, are invited to attend meetings within identifiable areas. At these meetings
they are asked to identify their heritage resources, within the area of the project.
Each person is given a set of 18 coloured cards, with three cards of each of six colours. The colours correspond to a general
heritage topic. The Highland Interpretive Strategy used these, but you could devise others:
Uses of the Land and Sea, Wildlife, Manmade Remains, Natural Features, People and the Past, Miscellaneous
Within each colour group the cards are numbered 1, 2 and 3, indicating the participants priority score for the feature to be
identified.
Ask people to write on the cards the features they want to identify, and to pin the cards on a large scale map. Participants
dont have to use all their cards, but they must not remove any cards from the map.
The card priority (1,2, or 3), and the total number of cards placed on each heritage feature can be used to give the site a
score.
Community participation identifying issues

At the same public meetings, and in addition to undertaking the map exercise, participants can be given a hand-out. This gives
a list of suggested key issues related to visitors and tourism in the study area. Participants are asked to show how concerned
they are about the various issues by using a graded scale for example marking them from 1 (very concerned) to 4 (of no
concern) and to comment on them.
It is important to identify these key tourism issues, as they help to determine the aims and objectives of the plan.
Interpretation can then be used as an aid to addressing certain issues, perhaps through the careful siting of signs, or by trail
routes which manage visitor congestion and avoid disturbing wildlife.
Each level of concern(1-4) can be given a value, so that the relative importance of each issue can be assessed:
1 (very concerned) = 4 points
3 (fairly happy with present situation) = 2 points
2 (fairly concerned) = 3 points

4(not a problem) = 1 point
Issues about which to consult people include:

Access to the area in general, Access to particular sites, Visitor Information, Length of tourist season, Tourist numbers, Parking,
Visitor accommodation, Wildlife disturbance, Character of the area, Litter.
fulfilling their wishes and taking into account their
concerns. Local people are also often the best
sources of knowledge about their area. If you are
involving community members in your plan, there
are some techniques you can use to involve as many
people as possible in identifying their concerns, and
what is worth interpreting.
Community participation work can allow each
individual to contribute, and give enough data to
allow an objective appraisal of the value a
community places on its multi-faceted heritage
resources. This helps avoid the possibility of one
group or one individual being overly assertive.
Often community consultation will confirm what
experts might say, but by involving the community
your plan will have more support, and agencies may
feel more able to support it. This process can be time
consuming, but it will be worthwhile in the long term.
5.9 PRODUCING THE PLAN

Producing and distributing the plans findings is an
important part of the whole process. Keep the plan
simple and jargon free wherever possible, and avoid
being too critical or confrontational: someone
reading the final report will go straight to the bits
that directly affect them, and may read these sections
out of context.
Who will see the report
The final report will probably be relevant to several
different audiences, and you may need to present
it in various forms. The planning group and the
main funding agencies will need a full report of
the interpretive planning process, so that the final

recommendations can be set within their proper
context.
For local groups and individuals a condensed version
may be more appropriate. This can outline the public
consultation results, the principal heritage resources
identified, the themes for the interpretation and the
recommendations.
5.10 IMPLEMENTATION
Some rural areas have been the subject of many
studies in an effort to address important issues of
rural development. Often the communitys view of
these studies is that in most cases the outcome has
been little or nothing. A local interpretive plan can
be seen as just another report that sits on the shelf.
Instead, the plan should be a working document for
people to keep referring to, a framework within
which you can work towards achieving projects.
Dont expect one person or agency to take on the
burden of co-ordinating the plan. There will often be
a complex range of issues to be addressed, and a
good way to do this is often to establish some sort of
implementation group.
Such a group needs to take a collective approach
to ensure that the projects which are implemented
by agencies, groups and individuals are continually
referred back to the planned framework. It is easy for
individual projects to build up such a momentum
that the plan seems irrelevant. A degree of self
discipline is needed from everyone to ensure that
developments do not occur out of context and
undermine the whole process.
After each meeting record the features identified with a grid reference, and use the list as a basis for further investigation of
how suitable the features are for interpretation.
31
32
6 Is it working?
Having put in the amount of effort needed to
produce a plan and get it implemented, you will
want to know whether you have achieved what you
set out to do: you will need to evaluate your
interpretation. Evaluation is a systematic assessment
of whether something works or performs
appropriately. This means that you must have set
criteria for performance in advance, usually in the
form of objectives.
Evaluation should tell you whether or not you
are meeting these objectives, and provide sound
evidence for this, rather than personal opinion or
impressions. You may feel that a project is working
well, and be able to cite things such as visitor
comments to support this feeling, but this is
anecdotal evidence. You cannot draw firm
conclusions from it about what to do next.
Examples of interpretive objectives
Financial objectives - e.g. increasing visitor

spend
80% of visitors who look at the interpretive panel at Kilmuir will leave knowing that burning heather is an important
management technique for maintaining the moor in good condition. (A learning objective)
Visitor management objectives - e.g. influencing

where people go and what they do
75% of visitors to the Kirkpatrick Bay visitor centre will leave feeling angry at the increasing amount of pollution from offshore
oil spillages. (An emotional objective)
Corporate objectives - e.g. promoting the

managing agencys identity
Marketing objectives - e.g. promoting a site
30% of visitors will take and use the herb meadow trail leaflet available in the visitor centre. (A behavioural objective)
effectively to attract more visitors
These are:
Learning objectives - what do you want visitors

to know or learn as a result of your
interpretation?
Emotional objectives - what do you want visitors
6.1 WHY EVALUATE

INTERPRETATION?
to feel as a result of your interpretation?
Behavioural objectives - what do you want

visitors to do as a result of your interpretation?
The main reasons for evaluating interpretation are to:
determine its success

improve it.
Since evaluation is about checking performance
against known objectives, it is important that these
objectives are set precisely. Much interpretation has
no clear objectives, or else they are so vague that
subsequent evaluation is difficult.
Examples of SMART management objectives might

include:
To be useful, objectives should be SMART, that is

they should be:
to increase the total number of visitors to
Specific: you know exactly what you want

to happen
Measurable: you know how you will measure it

Appropriate: to site and audience
Realistic: you have a reasonable chance of
achieving it
Timetabled: you know by when you want it to
to increase visitor spend in the shop/cafe by 5%

per annum for the next five years;
50,000 per annum within 3 years;
to reduce the number of visitors picking

bluebells in Kirk Braes wood by 75% this year.
You can assess such objectives by some form of
counting, for example through direct observation of
numbers, or till receipts. Of course, interpretation is
only one way of working towards these objectives:
you might also address them by marketing schemes,
or physical landscape alterations.
happen
Interpretive or communication objectives
It can be helpful to classify objectives into
management objectives and interpretive objectives.
Management objectives
These state what you want to achieve as managers
of a site or representatives of an organisation. They
tend to be the sort of objectives you have for the
whole plan, and include things like:
33
These are concerned with the kind of visitor

experience you want to create, or how you want to
influence your visitors perceptions. They are
particularly useful in guiding the writing and design
of specific pieces of interpretation.
John Veverka, the author of Interpretive Master
Planning, suggests a useful way of dividing them
into categories suggested by educational theory.
This exhibit at
Monterey Bay
Aquarium, USA,
has a clear
objective: to
explain how
turtles choke on
plastic bags
because they look
like jelly fish, their
usual food.
Learning and behavioural objectives could in

principle be evaluated fairly simply. Emotional
objectives are more difficult to assess, since they
involve the complex of emotions, opinions, attitudes
and values which make up what we call feelings.
Section 6.3 has some suggestions for how you might
evaluate such objectives.
6.2 WHEN DO I EVALUATE?
While you prepare your interpretation

Once you have established your interpretive themes
and objectives you will start designing the media
which will get them across. The purpose of assessing
audience reactions at this stage is to check that your
design ideas work. Mock-ups of exhibits, draft
versions of text, and illustrations for labels, leaflets
and panels can all be used to answer questions such
as Are your visitors picking up a clear theme? Do they
understand the concepts and terminology? Are the
graphics clear? Does the exhibit attract and hold their
attention?
Checking visitor responses and revising designs
can ensure that your final version is as effective as it
can be.
After youve finished
Once you have designed and produced
your interpretation you can ask the question
Evaluation should be a part of interpretive planning

right from the start, rather than being thought of as
something to be done (if at all) after a project has
been completed. The type of evaluation you do will
depend on the stage you have reached.
Before you start
Evaluation can be useful before anything has been
set up, particuarly where you are researching topics
and themes, and deciding on your interpretive
objectives. At this stage you are trying to answer
questions such as What do our audience already feel or
think about this topic, what misconceptions do they have
about it, how interested are they likely to be in it, and
how do they behave in relation to it?
It may be that the answers to such questions will
change your interpretive objectives. The more you
know about your audiences beliefs, attitudes and
feelings about the topic, the more successfully you
will be able to communicate effectively with them
through interpretation.
How successful are we? Evaluation at this stage is the

final assessment of how well or otherwise the
interpretation meets its objectives. However, by this
stage its usually too late to do anything about it if
you are not meeting them! This is why you need to
build in some form of evaluation from the start.
You can collect

responses from
visitors by
leaving
questionnaires
for them to
complete
themselves.
34
6 Is it working?
6.3 HOW DO YOU DO IT?
Direct Methods
The way you do your evaluation will depend on

what questions you need to answer, the nature of
the interpretation you are evaluating, your budget
and what technical expertise is required in data
gathering and/or analysis. Evaluation methodologies
can be divided into:
If you want to find out what visitors think or feel

about something, you need to ask them. There
are two main methods here: questionnaires and
interviews.
Questionnaires
Indirect methods - visitor behaviour is

observed unobtrusively without their knowledge
Direct methods - visitors are involved through

interviews or questionnaires
Quantitative methods - providing numerical

data in the form of counts, time spent, coded
questionnaire data etc. Such data can be
analysed statistically.
Qualitative methods - providing data in the

form of opinions, attitudes, perceptions and
feelings, or descriptions of behaviour.
Indirect methods
These involve collecting data in the form of
observations of visitor behaviour, or their
conversations. This can be either quantitative or
qualitative.
Observational methods involve defining certain
behaviours which interest you, and then counting
or timing them. Its easiest to do this if the observer
has a checklist of behaviours which can be ticked
off for each visitor observed. It is important that
behaviours are specific and unambiguous, such as
touches exhibit; reads text aloud to others; steps
off path; tries out model spinning wheel etc.
Observations may be made from one place, and
usually focus on one exhibit. Other behavioural
mapping studies may look at how visitors use the
space available, such as in a gallery, by counting the
number of visitors in particular locations at

particular times. Alternatively visitors can be tracked ,
that is followed unobtrusively and their path
through the space mapped, with the time they
spend and their behaviour noted at particular spots.
The importance of these methods is that they
provide information about what people actually do.
They do not tell us what people think or feel, and it
can be dangerous to infer this from what people do.
If people look
at this panel at
Nairn seafront
for a long time,
are they
interested in
it, struggling
to understand
it, or just
daydreaming?
Listen to your visitors

Eavesdropping (discreetly!) on what your visitors
say to one another can be an effective way of
finding out how they respond to your
interpretation. It can give you clues to the thoughts
and feelings you have inspired: it can also tell you
about misconceptions and misunderstandings you
need to correct. For example, visitors at a viewpoint
which overlooked a spectacular river gorge in
southern France were often heard saying things like
It must have been the glaciers that carved this out.
In fact, the glaciers never reached this part of
France. New interpretation here would need to
emphasise the power of the river itself in gouging
out the valley.
How attractive is this exhibit?

Two well known numerical indices of exhibit performance are derived from simple observations of number of visitors and
time spent.
Attraction power (of an exhibit) the number of people who stop at an exhibit, divided by the total number who pass it
(including those who stop), expressed as a percentage. This is a simple measure of how successfully an exhibit catches
peoples attention. For example, suppose that 60 people walk past an exhibit on wool spinning, and 15 of them stop to look
at it. The attraction power of the exhibit is 15 60 x 100 = 25%.
Holding power (of an exhibit) the average time people spend at an exhibit, divided by the actual time required to read or
review it, expressed as a percentage. This gives a measure of how well an exhibit holds peoples interest once they have
stopped at it. For example, suppose you need 10 minutes to read all the text on a panel, and to operate a small model
attached to it. If the average time people spend at the panel is 11/2 minutes, its holding power is 1.5 10 x 100 = 15%
35
These can be given to visitors to complete

themselves, or form the basis of a structured
interview. They can contain a mixture of closed and
open questions. Closed questions have a limited
range of possible responses: the simplest example
is one to which the answer is yes or no. Other
questions may have a number of possible answers,
but only from a given range, as in a multiple choice
question. Closed questions provide data which
can be easily coded, and counted or otherwise
treated numerically.
In open questions the answer is not specified in
advance and the interviewer usually writes down
the response. This may be coded later, or it may
be treated as qualitative data. Open questions
allow interviewees to express feelings, opinions
and attitudes.
Variations on questions may involve
the use of rankings. For example:
Such methods often involve the use of show cards.

The interviewee is presented with cards which have
the alternative responses or ratings printed on them;
they tell the interviewer what their response is; and
the interviewer records it.
Questionnaires for visitors to complete themselves
may be given or posted out to people, and returned
at their discretion. A problem here can be a poor rate
of return, especially if the content is not of particular
interest to the respondent. Interviewer administered
questionnaires are more time consuming, but most
people will be pleased to answer questions about
interpretive facilities if the interviewer is pleasant,
and the interview does not take too long. They
should only take five to ten minutes to complete.
Questionnaires design can be a complex issue,
and this chapter cannot do justice to all of the
considerations involved in it. You can find
suggestions for further reading in the book list.
Qualitative methods
These methods involve gathering data such as
comments, opinions, attitudes, conversation, or
behaviour. This data is not treated numerically, but is
usually described, organised and carefully interpreted
Rank the following types of countryside in

order of your preference for visiting them:
Mountains
Moorlands
Sandy coasts
Rivers and lakes
Rocky coasts
Lowland farmed landscapes
Another variation is to use statements
and ask interviewees to rate their level
of agreement or disagreement with
them. This is one way in which you can
assess visitors opinions or feelings, for
example:
Please tell me which number on the scale
corresponds to your feelings about the
statement The herring fishing industry will never return
to its former strength.
1
Strongly
Agree
2
Agree
3
4
5
Neither Disagree Strongly
agree nor
Agree
disagree
by the evaluator. Qualitative methods can involve

semi-structured interviews with one person at a time,
or more usually, with a group often called a focus
group. Such interviews are usually tape recorded and
analysed later. The interviewers job is to provide a
structure of prompts and open ended questions
aimed at exploring a topic in some depth; and to
explore the experiences, perceptions and feelings
Focus groups
are an informal
way to gauge
reactions.
36
6 Is it working?
that people have in relation to the topic.

If you are setting up a focus group it is
important to decide what areas need to be explored,
and draw up a discussion check list to ensure that
they are covered. You must also decide on your
target audience, and on how you will recruit people
to the group. It is usual to recruit fairly
homogenous groups to reflect particular target
audience segments, and if necessary run several
groups of different compositions. Groups should
consist of 8-10 people, be arranged in a comfortable
venue with refreshments, and last a maximum of
one and a half hours. You are asking people to give
up quite a long time, so consider giving them some
sort of incentive such as a payment or a gift.
During the focus group the interviewer should
try to generate a relaxed, informal atmosphere, and
keep the discussion flowing to cover all topics. The
interviewer needs to manage the group without
hindering its activity and without biasing it in any
particular direction. They should also make sure
everyone has a say.
Analysis of the focus group discussion should be
by tape or transcript and involves picking out the
key issues relating to the overall objectives of the
evaluation. Points of agreement and disagreement
should be noted. How strongly do people hold
various attitudes, how interested are they in the
topic discussed?
6.4 MATCHING EVALUATION

PHASE AND TECHNIQUE
Different evaluation methods are useful at different
stages in interpretive planning. This table gives
some guidelines on which methods are most useful
at which stage, together with an indication of the
time involved in each.
6.5 MEASUREMENT AND

SAMPLING ISSUES
Is your method valid?
All evaluators need to consider certain issues in
relation to their techniques. The first issue is that of
validity is your technique appropriate to that
which you are trying to measure? Remember the
example of somebody looking at a panel for a long
time. Such a person would contribute a score that
would increase the overall holding power score of
that panel, but you cant infer from that simple
measure that the panel is really interesting, based
on the assumption that the amount of time spent in
front of the panel is a valid measure of interest.
Is your method reliable?
Another, related, issue is that of reliability or
consistency. Does your measurement technique
produce scores that are consistent across time and
the people using it? If a technique is reliable across
time it will produce the same score (within limits)
when used to measure the same thing on repeated
occasions, assuming no other changes. Consistency
among observers is important for techniques using
checklists of behaviour. The technique will not be
reliable if different observers interpret items on the
checklist, such as visitor reads the text on the
panel in different ways.
Is your sample representative?
Sampling issues are important in relation to the
conclusions we wish to draw from any evaluation.
If you are interested in finding out whether visitors
learned something from a particular piece of
interpretation, you are unlikely to be able to
interview all your visitors. Instead you will have to
PHASE
METHOD
TIME REQUIRED
Before you start
Focus groups
3 person days each
Questionnaire survey
8 person days plus
As you prepare
interpretation
Observation plus
simple interviewer
administered
questionnaires
2 person days
per item of
interpretation
After youve finished
All methods but

primarily observation study
and questionnaire survey
7 person days plus
37
interview a manageable proportion of the total

number: a sample. If you are to draw conclusions
from the data you obtain from your sample that can
apply to the whole population of visitors, this sample
must be representative of the whole population.
This means that the sample will need to have the
same proportions of different sub-groups as exist in
the whole population of visitors, for example the
same proportions of men and women, of family
groups, of first time and repeat visitors and so on.
apart from Scotland, travelling independently, and

without children under 16 living at home. Several
focus groups may be needed to reflect the visitor
profile of the site.
Further reading
This chapter cannot deal comprehensively with all
aspects of setting up an evaluation study. It aims to
give some starting points, but if you want to do
Are they interested, or just warm?

If a behavioural mapping study showed that a lot of people spent more time in a particular museum gallery displaying Neolithic
stone artefacts, you might infer that people are really attracted by this gallery and spend a long time there because of its interest
value. But then you might discover that the evaluation was conducted in winter, that this gallery was significantly warmer than
any of the others, and that people stayed longer there while walking briskly through the others.
The usual way of achieving this is to select a random

sample. This means that every one of your visitors
should have an equal chance of ending up in your
sample. If you dont do this, your sample might only
contain attractive looking people, or people who
look as if they wont say no if you approach them!
Other biases could be introduced if you only
interview at weekends or weekdays, or only during
the summer. This is acceptable if you are clear that
your data only represents summer or weekend
visitors; that is, a specific sub-set of your total
population of visitors.
some in depth evaluation, and in particular if you

want to use statistical analyses, you will need to
follow up these issues in the books suggested in the
reading list.
How many is enough?

There is always a trade off between time and money
on the one hand, and statistical accuracy on the
other. If you want to compare data between different
sub-groups of your population, then numbers in each
sub-group should not be less than 50.
Exceptions to the rules
Evaluation as you prepare your interpretation does
not need large numbers of carefully selected
individuals, because your aim is to find out whether
something works or not, and then change it.
A small sample of people, typically five to ten,
will be enough to indicate where improvements
are required.
For focus groups which have only eight to ten
participants, it is important that the groups are as
homogenous as possible. This means that each group
should consist of members of one sub-group of
visitors, for example tourists who come from the UK
Questionnaires
provide data
which can be
analysed
statistically.
38
Ranger Cynthia
Harrell uses a
set of Lego
bricks as a prop
to explain the
formation of the
Grand Canyon.
7 Designing & producing

interpretation
This chapter offers help with designing and
producing interpretation. The first two sections give
some ground rules for making your interpretation as
effective as possible: these apply whether you are
planning a guided walk, a leaflet, or an exhibition.
The other sections give some practical guidelines
on different media: talking to someone is usually
the best method of interpretation, but leaflets,
panels and other methods often have to stand in to
greet, guide and entertain visitors. The guidelines
apply whether you are taking on this work alone,
and need to liaise with manufacturers and printers;
or whether you are going to work with a team,
perhaps employing consultants and designers, or
training guides.
or a chat with a friend? So getting and holding

attention also means thinking of ways to make your
interpretation enjoyable.
visitor and summarise the main point of the

message. Along the Water of Leith Walkway in
Edinburgh, a panel in a patch of trees used the title
Are you on the right platform? Nothing is left of
the station that used to be there, so the title aims to
surprise walkers into stopping and reading more.
You also need to hold peoples attention,
especially if youve got a long or complex story to
Making it relevant
If your interpretation is to have any effect, it must be
relevant to the audience you are trying to reach.
Sam Ham, in his book Environmental
Interpretation, suggests that there are two aspects to
this, and that if something is to be relevant to an
audience it must be both meaningful and personal.
Make it meaningful
7.1 WHAT MAKES

COMMUNICATION WORK?
Communication principles
For interpretation to work well, it needs to follow
the principles of all good communication. Research
has established guidelines to what helps human
beings pay attention to, take an interest in, and
remember new information or ideas. There are four
important principles which achieve this:
getting attention;
making it enjoyable;
making your communication relevant to your
audience;
giving it a structure.
Getting attention
You cant get your message across unless your
audience takes an interest in it. So the first thing
you need to do is to catch peoples attention. An
example of this would be a leaflet with an attractive
or brightly coloured cover to make it stand out from
others in a display. Or you might use a large title on
a panel to grab the interest of passers-by. Rather like
a newspaper headline, it can both intrigue your
tell. You cant keep on using surprises and tricks your interpretation would be very tiresome if you
did. But you can make sure that you write any text
in an easy to read style, or provide cliff-hangers at
the end of each section of a guided tour: If you
follow me to the next building, well see what
happened next...
Other devices to hold peoples attention include
activities which they can do as a group or a family,
and providing variety in the media you use in an
exhibition. Give people things to handle as well
as pictures to look at and text to read; have
someone offer a demonstration at particular times
during the day.
Interpretation
in this
reconstructed
Victorian chemist
shop at Blists
Hill, Ironbridge,
can relate
to modern
experience of
buying medicines.
Making it enjoyable
People will pay attention to something which
pleases them, even if they know they ought to be
paying attention to something else. Were you ever
distracted from exam revision by a game of football,
N o d o g l e a d ? Ta k e o n e o f o u r s !
The unexpected or unusual is always a good way of catching attention. A project on the Norfolk Coast wanted to encourage
walkers on the beach to put their dogs on a lead. They found that few people were reading the notices asking them to do this,
so they made some makeshift leads from baler twine, and hung them from hooks beneath a notice which asked people to take
a lead if they had forgotten to bring their own. More people stopped to read the notice, and though few of them used the
leads provided, many more got the message and used their own.
39
The idea of it being meaningful is quite

straightforward: people cannot understand
something which is outside their experience.
An extreme example of this is speaking to someone
in a language they dont understand. Youre unlikely
to do this, but be careful you dont assume that your
audience understands ideas or facts which are only
familiar to you through long acquaintance with
them. Remember that most interpretation can only
give an introduction to a subject for people who are
new to it, or who may only take an interest in it
during their visit.
A good way to do this is to build bridges between
what people already know, and the new information
you want them to understand. Our minds work in
such a way that we learn new things more quickly if
we can attach them to knowledge we already have.
Computer instruction manuals do this when they
compare the way information is stored on a disk to a
filing cabinet, in which the disk is like the filing
cabinet, the computer directories are like drawers in
the cabinet, and the data files like the paper files in
the drawers.
Its not just new concepts which can cause
problems. Watch out for words which you may have
known for years, but which may be like a foreign
language to your visitors. Primary woodland,
architrave and presbytery will be meaningful to
an ecologist, an architect, and a church historian
respectively, but not to the majority of visitors to a
forest park, a castle, or an abbey. Get someone who
doesnt know your subject to check what youre
saying or writing, and explain specialist terms if you
must use them.
Make it personal
Making interpretation personal means finding ways
of linking it to your visitors own lives. Things we
feel are important are powerful triggers which can
make us pay attention to something and remember it
even amongst many distractions. As an example,

think about the power of your own name. If youve
ever been in a crowded, noisy room, and someone
starts talking about you, you hear your own name
above all the hubbub and immediately start trying to
listen to what is being said.
Obviously, you cant address all your visitors by
name, but there are other things you can refer to
which are almost as powerful. All human beings are
driven to find shelter and food to eat, so linking your
interpretation to these basic needs can build a link
with your audience. If you know the nationality of
the group you are dealing with, you can refer to that.
A tour guide with a group of French visitors in a
distillery, for example, might get across how
important whisky is to Scotland by introducing the
tour like this:
I know that in France wine is something you get
passionate about. Here in Scotland, we get just as excited
by whisky, and theres as much difference between
different malts as between different wines...
You can also build links to your visitors through
mentioning things they may have done which are
connected to your subject. If you were describing
how bacteria break down dead leaves, for example,
you might write
If youve ever kept a compost heap, youll know how hot
it gets in the middle. That heat is produced by millions of
bacteria...
Not everyone who reads that will have kept a
compost heap, but for those who have youve made
a subtle but real connection with their own
experience which will help them both understand,
and pay attention to what you want to tell them.
40

interpretation
Give it structure
You may have heard the advice about public
speaking that goes: Tell them what youre going to
tell them; tell them; then tell them what youve told
them. Behind this apparent nonsense lies a useful
truth: people find it easier to understand and
remember information if it has a clear structure.
If the introductory text of an exhibition says:
This exhibition is about how different life was for the
families of herring fishermen from the way we live today
it gives visitors a mental structure for whats coming
next, and this helps them to make sense of it. The
text could go on to say:
The first room looks at what life was like on board ship,
and how the men looked after themselves. The second
room tells the story of the wives who followed the fleets,
and upstairs you can find out what it was like to be a
herring fleet child.
The panel at
Mount St.
Helens,
USA, uses a
clear hierarchy
of text.
This does even more: it not only gives a structure to
what the exhibition is about, it also explains its

physical layout, so they can easily find the part they
are interested in. The exhibition has a logical order
to it, which makes it easier for visitors to follow.
Notice that giving structure to interpretation
41
isnt just about physical layout, though that is

important in publications and panels as well as in
exhibitions. Its also about giving visitors clues to
the themes which the interpretation contains. As
chapters 1 and 5 explain, themes are essential tools
both for giving structure, and for making sure that
what you provide is interpretation, rather than just
information.
can be cost effective, requiring little investment;
7.2 GROUND RULES
Personal interpretive programmes:
These ground rules apply to all interpretation,

whatever the method. If you need to check your
understanding of any of these, look back at chapters
1 and 5.
Be selective and concise. There is rarely a
shortage of material, ideas and stories for an
interpretive project. It is never possible or desirable
to include all the possible material. Your task is to
select and simplify, and to do this you will need a
theme or themes. When you edit, reduce rather
than expand text!
Be clear who you are talking to. A publication
for primary school children will read differently and
look different from one which will be used by
holiday makers, although both publications are
about the same place.
Use everyday language. So that young people
and old people can understand, as well as people
for whom English (or Scots) is not a first language.
This means that specialist words (the language of
experts and enthusiasts) and many local terms
(dialect) will need explanation. Always test your
draft with a non-specialist, non-local audience to
see if they understand it as you intended.
Use stories and quotations. Refer to real people
to give life and reinforce a genuine sense of place
and culture.
Use metaphors and similes that relate to
everyday experience. For example, describe the
amount of timber removed from a forest every year
by translating the volume into the equivalent
number of double-decker buses, or how many three
piece suites it would make.
Make all aspects of your project work
together. Sensitive choices of colour, style and
materials can add to a sense of place and help
reveal its character. Or you may have a bold,
dramatic story to tell: your design should reflect this.
Make route directions, instructions and
warnings clear. Dont bury them within a narrative
or descriptive text. Display them in a separate box
or use another typeface or colour.
Test ideas as much as possible. Use mock-ups
of your leaflets or displays to see if they work. Allow
usually require a lot of organising;
can generate income;

can provide employment;
can offer ways of celebrating, sharing and
enhancing aspects of community life.
Disadvantages
involve teams of people who need support

At Beamish,
guides provide
the most lively
and personal
interpretation.
extra time and money for this.
7.3 PERSONAL
INTERPRETATION
Being guided by an entertaining and kindly host is
often the most successful form of interpretation.
Personal interpretation can involve:
and nurture;
are never finished as there is a need to be

flexible to accommodate demands, foresee
developments and be creative;
need continuing commitment from everyone

involved to maintain quality. This can also be
a great advantage: its a way of achieving
satisfaction and delight for provider and
visitor alike.
guided tours, on foot or using transport, around

a site or a region;
visiting places where people work or live e.g. a

distillery tour, farm open day;
watching demonstrations;
hearing stories - real and mythical;
taking part in organised activity e.g. learning
how to identify birds;
watching and/or taking part in performance e.g.

battle re-enactments.
Training
Even if your guides or hosts are naturals and can
speak about their subject without preparation, they
are likely to need some training, perhaps for:
speaking to large groups, indoors and outdoors,

without shouting;
structuring and timing their performance or tour

for best effect;
dealing with obstructive people and persistent

questions;
Advantages
The personal touch:
Panels can
make ugly
intrusions into
the landscape,
like these at
Lawyers Canyon,
Idaho, USA.
can interpret complicated processes and help

people understand issues or activities they would
otherwise not approach;
offers great flexibility. There is almost endless

scope for experiment and for responding to your
audience and their needs;
accommodating all comers, disabled people and

non-English speakers.
Training should also cover how to deal with
emergencies and cope with the unexpected, for
example two groups arriving at the same time. No
two days will be quite the same. Everyone involved
with a site or programme needs to have the same
ground rules and know about contingency plans.
A training course of a day or two, designed to suit
your requirements and team should establish
confidence and make all the difference.
Groups should ideally never be more than twenty
people. This means that a coach party needs to be
divided into three groups.
42

interpretation
7.4 OUTDOOR PANELS
Disadvantages
Outdoor panels often do several tasks - they can

stand in to welcome people; offer them directions;
and give instructions, as well as interpretation.
Outdoor panels are not so good:
Advantages
Outdoor panels can welcome visitors and show or
explain:
where they are This is the start of the heritage

trail, but you need to cross the river to get to the
castle;
Attractive
illustrations
on panels
help visitors
understand
archaeological
remains such
as here at the
Broch of
Gurness in
Orkney.
what is available for them to do and see,

opening times etc.;
the extent or limits of where they can go;

the choice of routes that they can use.
All this information is essential to visitors who need
to decide what they are going to do, and how to
spend their time. It might encourage them to stay
longer if they
know, from the
start, that they
can call in at
another attraction
as part of their
excursion, or
return via another
view point.
Think of this as a
menu of
possibilities.
Outdoor panels
are also useful
for:
providing
interpretation
at any hour
of the day
and on the
spot that it is
needed;
focusing the
attention of visitors, perhaps to explain features
in a view;
integrating pictures and diagrams with text,
perhaps to show how a castle was attacked or
an iron-age settlement was inhabited.
43
in landscapes or situations where the

atmosphere would be destroyed by the
intrusion. Sensitive choices of panel material,
colour, size, location and support structure can
help here, but there are some places where any
new addition would spoil the feel of the place;
when greeting large numbers of people at once.

Three people from a bus party will stand in
front of a panel while the rest walk past and
panels cannot answer spontaneous questions.
You need a person to speak to large parties;
at guiding people through large sites. Maps on

panels show possibilities and aid decisions, but
visitors need a map to carry with them and/or
signs and a marked path to follow a specific route;
for maintaining contact with regular or local

visitors. Up-to-date information on temporary
displays, and contact through the local press,
will be appreciated more by regulars;
at interpreting complicated stories on a single

panel;
for creating drama, invoking sound, smell and a

sense of movement. Aural commentary and
multi-media might do a better job of these;
at surviving attack from persistent vandals and

harsh weather, not to mention other hazards,
such as cows looking for a scratching post, or
bird droppings which obscure your lovingly
crafted text.
Producing outdoor panels
Be concise! Restrict text to under 200 words per
panel and, if appropriate, say where there is
additional information or artefacts on display. A
helpful approach is to decide on just two or three
points you want to get across, and summarise them
in a clear theme, e.g. Miners who worked here led
hard and demanding lives, but their comradeship is still
remembered and valued in the village two generations
later. Keep this theme in mind as you plan your
panel and make sure that all the words and images
contribute to developing it.
Consider carefully how best to express your
message perhaps an annotated image is better
than an account with words.
Dont use illustrations which simply duplicate
what people can see for themselves, unless you
want to annotate a view. Use illustrations to show

things they cannot see, or what things looked like at
another time.
Dont use illustrations just to fill up space.
Too many panels are cluttered with wild flowers here
and there. Good design needs space to breathe.
Many people find oblique views easier to read
than conventional maps. These are not easy to draw
and need careful thought about what to include.
Leaving out unnecessary detail makes the essential
parts clearer. Before drawing an oblique view or map
you need to have decided how the panel will be
oriented on site. Orientate your map the same way,
so that people looking at the map are facing in the
right direction.
Line drawings work well, especially to show
reconstructions and how things worked. Use
graphics to explain processes e.g. the build up
of land by tidal deposits, but take care to keep
it simple.
Consider the range of materials, manufacturing
and printing techniques at the start and discuss with
the manufacturers. This will avoid disappointments
such as producing beautiful artwork only to discover
that the detail cannot be reproduced. An experienced
designer can help you here, since they will have an
overview of what is available. If you are doing it
yourself, talk to several manufacturers: companies
who deal with one process will not necessarily tell
you what is possible in others.
Display text needs to be big, with letters at least
8 mm. high. Arrange text in blocks or paragraphs of
about 50 words. Use headings to attract attention
and emphasise main points.
Always choose and check colours outdoors
because they look quite different indoors. Be very
careful about using a white background, it can glare
and be too noticeable from far away.
Ensure that someone will check the panel
regularly, and clean, repair, or remove it if necessary.
Sitting panels
Consider whether to use an upright or an angled
panel lectern style is best. If possible mount a
panel onto an existing structure such as a ticket
kiosk or a wall rather than make a separate structure.
Extending the roof of a building to provide an
overhang or verandah creates shelter for viewers and
panels alike.
Do not put up panels which obscure the view. If
possible site them against a wall, bank or foliage so
that they do not stand above the horizon. On a very
open site consider using a panel angled to the
desired line of sight, but almost at ground level so
that visitors only come across it when they need it.

This makes it easy for children to read too!
Avoid putting panels in full sunlight as this will
speed up the deterioration of most materials.
Sample costings
Every panel is different. How much a panel costs will
depend on the complexity of the design, how many
colours you use, the panel material, and how you
mount it, but you should be prepared to spend at
least 2,500 for each one. This may seem expensive,
but think of the numbers of people who will use the
panel over a five year period.
The following guidelines are based on prices in
December 2000 and exclude VAT. You need to think
of three aspects when costing panels: origination,
production, and display.
Origination
The major part of the cost is in the origination
writing and agreeing drafts, producing illustrations,
design and final artwork. Good quality illustrations
are essential, but allow for them in your budget. A
reconstruction drawing of a castle, or an oblique
view of hills and valleys, could cost 1,000 alone.
You need to invest time as well as money at this
stage perhaps to research and consult the experts
about the subject, or to get your community to agree
to the proposals. This needs to be done with the first
sketch, well before any final design and artwork.
You could easily be paying for 40 hours work,
done over several weeks, for research, drafting text,
finding reference material and illustrations, and
getting agreement to a rough before any final artwork
can be produced. This will cost 1,000 to 1,500.
Production
The cost of panels varies considerably depending on
the material you choose. A common approach is to
encapsulate a full colour digital print in resin,
reinforced with glass fibre. This allows a lot of
flexibility in design and illustration and is reasonably
durable, with a useful life of about eight years.
It will cost about 700 for a panel measuring
900mm x 700mm. Perstorp Warerite is more
durable, but the image is screen printed so it cannot
reproduce fine detail or subtle colouring. It is also
more expensive, at about 900 for the same size
panel. Remember that more durable isnt always
better. Fashions and ideas change: after eight years,
you may well feel it is time for a new approach!
44

interpretation
Display
Panel manufacturers will be able to offer various
designs of framing, integral fixings, and supports
or legs. None of these might be suitable for your
location and it is often preferable to use local
materials that blend in and enhance the sense
of place.
Display can be a significant part of your costs if
you need to build a structure, or put in hard
standing around the panel.
Typical costing for one panel (2000 prices)
Research, scripting and design
Specially commissioned illustration
Panel manufacture
Frame and legs
Total
1,350
500
700
500
3,050
7.5 PUBLICATIONS
Leaflets, booklets and newsletters about a place can
fulfil many needs such as:
promoting the place;

explaining what is on offer, where to go and how
to get the most from a visit;
guiding visitors around a planned route and

adding information to what is experienced at
specific stopping points a self-guided trail;
offering background information as well as

stimulating visitors and explaining what they
are seeing a souvenir as well as guide.
Make sure you know from the start which of these
your publication needs to do.
Advantages
providing a souvenir of a visit (which might

encourage other people to visit as well, when
they see it).
Disadvantages
Publications are not good at:
appealing to people who do not enjoy reading

a large number of people;
being available when needed, particularly if there

is no immediate outlet/shop on site.
The best leaflet in the world is useless if it is not
found and enjoyed by those who can make use of it.
What outlets are there? Will your potential audience
go there? Do you need to employ a distribution
service? Is it necessary to build in a profit margin as
an incentive for other distributors?
Publications are useful for:
providing a lot of information. If they are well

designed and laid out, the visitor does not have
to read it all to find what is required at the
right time;
offering interpretation which can be enjoyed

sometime after the visit;
interpreting large areas at the same time as being

able to focus on detail;
showing what places look like at different times

of the year, advertising forthcoming events and
therefore encouraging return visits;
generating income;
45
Producing Publications
Knowing your audience, getting the design right and
making the leaflet attractive are especially important
as the audience has to be encouraged to pick up or
buy the leaflet to start with.
Think about how the publication is going to be used.
Does it need to fit into standard sized tourist
literature racks? Does it need to be pocket-sized? If it
is an on-site guide, arrange the content so that the
thing does not fold out to become unwieldy in a
breeze. Would a waterproof sleeve be useful?
Do not lay out a leaflet so that the map is on one
side and all the information on the other so that
users have to keep flipping back and forth. Integrate
On the
Knockan Trail,
a guidebook
helps visitors
find their way
and explains
the features
they see.
the text with the map: perhaps you can use a small
outline map to give an overview of the whole site,
but put half the detailed map with the relevant
information on one side and the other half on
the reverse.
What theme or storyline needs emphasis? Write
text in segments with sub-headings so that users can
find the bit they want. Use headings that are
interesting e.g.: Ships, sheep and riots rather than
Maritime trade, agriculture, and civil disturbance.
Do not duplicate what is said in words with
illustrations but make them work together to support
each other. You can usually communicate much
more with images than with words, so use them as
much as possible.
Try out a mock-up on strangers. This is especially
valuable if your leaflet contains instructions
and directions.
Large print runs reduce unit costs, but only print
enough for a year or two at most. Visitor survey
figures or sales figures from similar sites can help you
decide on the quantity. A change of colour or cover
image can stimulate new interest in a new edition.
If you plan to sell your publication, this may have
implications for the sources of funding available to
you. Public sector agencies are not always keen on
supporting material which will be sold. If you do
want to sell it, think about what people might be
prepared to pay. Selling a booklet for 2.50 is
different from getting sales for a 75p leaflet. Is there
any competition? Work back from your desired
selling price to see what is possible to produce for
your budget that will also achieve what you want to
do. This can encourage a disciplined approach to
content and clarity!
Sample costings
Again, prices will vary according to what you want: a
publication can be a substantial book, or a single
piece of paper. As with panels, origination will cost
more than production.
The following guidelines are based on 2000 prices,
and exclude VAT.
Printing
5000 copies - 800 to 1,250.
Total cost
2,400 to 4,250. This is 48p to 85p per copy.
2. A full colour glossy leaflet on A4 paper, folded
twice; containing photos supplied by you and a
map produced by your contractor.
Origination
Research, writing and agreeing drafts, producing and
agreeing design rough including map, producing
final artwork on film or disk - 1,000 to 1,250
Printing
10,000 copies - 800 to 1,000.
Total cost
1,800 to 2,250. This is 18p to 23p per copy.
7.6 MULTI - MEDIA

Multi-media can mean audio-visual programmes
shown in auditoria, sound and light shows, video
programmes, or interactive computers using
CD-Rom. These can be used to offer:
masses of information. Touch screen gazetteers

can tell visitors all about different aspects of a
region, a large site or a collection of sites in as
much depth as they are prepared to take in;
programmes as sophisticated as television

documentaries;
stunning effects.
Advantages
Multi-media can:
tell stories with excitement and drama, effects

and music, smoke and smells!
1. An A5 size, full colour, 8 page booklet,

containing photos supplied by you, with line
drawings and a map produced by your contractor.
speed up (e.g. two hundred years of history) or
Origination
provide a consistently high quality performance;
Research, writing and agreeing drafts, commissioning

illustration, producing and agreeing design rough,
producing final artwork on film or disk - 1,600 to
3,000.
provide multi-lingual facilities.
slow down events (e.g. bird flight) so that the

audience can take in the story;
46

interpretation
your needs best. Make sure there is time to do this,
and go and see what is on offer.
Computer interactives can be great fun and certainly
attract the computer buffs. They are not good at
occupying lots of people: only one or two can play.
They can be useful for explaining complicated events
or for simulating what would happen if... but
sometimes it is easier to absorb less information, and
it can be presented in other ways so that more
people can gain access to it.
If put within an exhibition space or in a foyer,
they can cause disturbance as groups gather round
trying to see what is going on. If they include sound
effects, the repeated sounds can drive staff mad!
Large screen and multi-screen projected shows
can give you vivid and detailed effects and prompt
emotional response - like cinema. For this you will
need some sort of theatre, a special environment
designed to suit the particular equipment used, and
a good sound system. Large groups (a coach full) can
be accommodated, and visitors often appreciate the
opportunity to sit down and enjoy a show.
Using multi-media can make an important
contribution to fulfilling a set of interpretive
objectives. It is easy, though, to be beguiled by the
possibilities and lose sight of the real purpose.
Using multi-media to best effect requires
considerable discipline and very clear ideas about
what the objectives are (beyond enjoying the
technology!)
An interactive
computer
programme at
the World
Forestry
Centre in
Portland,
USA guides
visitors
through the
rights and
wrongs of
logging virgin
forest.
Disadvantages
7.7 VISITOR CENTRES
Multi-media:
can make the interpretation more spectacular

than the place itself.
is sophisticated and needs professional quality

material poor images and incoherent sound
will not be tolerated;
Visitor centres, great and small, can provide an

overview of an area or region and enhance its
identity. They can introduce a place, help protect it
and provide additional facilities to develop tourism
or educational use. They can be museums and
entertainment centres and provide the only cup of
tea for many miles.
is subject to the whims of fashion. What is the most

exciting thing today can seem very dull tomorrow;
can need regular maintenance;

can cause disappointment when, if it breaks
down, you have to wait for specialist help to
reach you from distant parts;
Going multi-media?
Involve the experts and discuss your ideas. Few
experts are familiar with all the possibilities so
consider several options before deciding which of
the numerous technical possibilities is going to meet
47
Advantages
Visitor centres can:
display artefacts and material on site;

offer scope for several methods of interpretation
to be used together or on different occasions to
suit different requirements;
provide all year round, all weather facilities;

control access and the way visitors use a site;
generate income;
Dont build a visitor centre!

Be very cautious if you are considering a visitor centre. They require huge amounts of money: not just to build, or to convert a
building, but to run. It can be fairly easy to get the capital you need to build a centre; getting revenue funding later is very
difficult.
Once you have opened a centre, you have created a business which will need continual marketing, management, re-thinking,
and renewal if it is to remain an interesting, attractive place. High profile centres with spectacular exhibits can attract people to
a place, but are they really compatible with the ideals of sustainable tourism, or with the goal of encouraging visitors to
appreciate the place itself (rather than its visitor centre)?
If what you want to do is to stimulate economic activity through tourism, think about other, more cost effective ways of doing
this before you decide on a visitor centre.
create employment;
become a focus for community involvement.
Disadvantages
Visitor centres:
need major investment and planning;

need staffing, opening and closing every day;
are not available after hours;
need maintenance and continuing investment;
Visitor
centers, like
this one in
GlenTrool,
need careful
planning and
a long term
commitment
of time and
money.
are becoming commonplace. Are there just too

many centres on the tourist trail?
Planning visitor centres
Building a visitor centre can have a major impact on
a community, create a tourism focus where there was
none, and change the flow of traffic in a village.
Placing the building in relation to the site is
critical. Is it useful to overlook the site from
windows or viewing galleries so you can interpret

what you can see and help visitors to orientate
themselves by looking at the real thing? Or does the
visitor centre need to act as a transit space between
the modern world and a special site with an
atmosphere that needs protection?
When building a new visitor centre dont start
with a design for a building. Think first about what
tasks need to be accomplished, and what functions
need to be accommodated. Start by imagining your
visitors arriving. Where and how will they arrive?
What information will they need immediately?
Perhaps an overview of the place and whats on offer,
so that they can decide whether to have lunch first
or take a guided tour before lunch.
Its difficult to take in a lot of information at once
and for several people, together, to decide what to
do. Providing information at the right time in the
sequence of arrival can help visitors get much more
from their visit.
Integrate the interpretation at the planning stage.
When is it most useful to see the video: before or
after the tour of the site? How is the display material
going to be presented? Too often visitor centres are
built from plans with a space labelled exhibition and
more consideration is given to making the catering
space work well. Involve the exhibition designers
from the start.
A visitor centre will lead to change in a
community and can become a focus for
development. The principles of sustainable tourism
(see page 6) offer guidance on how to make the
best of this development. Take care that all the
community are working with this change and
benefitting from it. Visitor centres could offer scope
for improving facilities for the community as well as
for visitors.
48

interpretation
7.8 WORKING WITH
CONTRACTORS
Your contractors might be design consultants or
builders, map makers or performance artists. They
might be taking on the production of your
interpretation from research to product or they might
be contributing a part.
Write your brief for the work and check it with
others before using it. Doing this will clarify your
own thoughts. A good brief will help everyone
involved to integrate their roles more effectively and
more accurately estimate costs.
Your brief should set out your objectives and
requirements. The introduction should explain who
you are, what organisation or partnership you
represent and outline the whole project. Your
objectives should summarise what you want to
achieve with this project and, if appropriate with
this particular piece of work, within the project.
Your brief or subsequent discussion should also be
clear about:
budgets and the scale of the work from the

outset. Fitting out a visitor centre might be
budgeted at 50,000 or 500,000;
what you are going to do or provide and what

you are expecting the contractor to do or
provide. For instance, how much research
material have you available? Who is paying any
copyright and reproduction fees (for use of
music or images from libraries etc.)?
time scale and penalties for late delivery.

Commitments to deadlines apply to all
concerned, not just to the last person in the
chain. It is important for everyones sanity to
acknowledge delays as they happen and agree
what adjustments can be made!
who has responsibility for what and which

people are needed to take decisions. It might
be necessary to plan well ahead to make sure
that the necessary people are available when
required for decisions. Make sure that you will
be able to provide the materials and decisions
which the contractor needs.
Competitive tendering
If you are organising competitive tendering then do
not expect contenders to do half the job as their
submission. Asking for just a sketch or two sounds
simple enough, but such sketches are useless if not

based on appropriate research and thought.
A better approach is to look at designers previous
work in brochures, and by visiting other sites, to find
out how well expectations and objectives have been
addressed. Then make a short list, say of three
contenders. Ask them to comment on your brief and
then discuss with them how they and you would
work on your project, and what can be done for the
budget available.
If there is no fixed budget, then you must be even
more clear about your objectives so that contenders
can understand them in detail and cost ideas for
fulfilling them. At this conceptual stage, it can be
difficult with a large project to compare one
proposal with another unless you provide some
framework with a brief and, perhaps, an imaginary
ball park figure budget.
Working together
Share any ideas you have about how you think your
project will look, what materials you envisage using,
or the tone of it. Good contractors will help you
develop and improve your ideas through their
experience and expertise. This is what you
are paying for, as well as the end product. This
process can start at the initial appointment
interviews, but should be developed further once
a contractor is chosen.
Remember to check all suggestions and
developments against what you are trying to achieve.
Carefully consider how these suggestions will help
you communicate the messages you want to put
across, and achieve your objectives. Do not let
enthusiasm for proposals which look exciting or
fashionable mask a failure to address your objectives.
Fu r t h e r r e a d i n g
Interpretation and interpretive planning
Producing publications
Many of the practical books on interpretation are

published in the United States.
Zehr, J, Gross, M, and Zimmerman, R Creating

environmental publications: a guide to writing and
designing for interpreters and environmental educators.
University of Wisconsin, 1992
You should be able to order them through on-line

services such as Amazon.
Ham, S H Environmental interpretation: a practical
guide for people with big ideas and small budgets.
North American Press, 1992
Lewis, W J Interpreting for park visitors.
Eastern Acorn Press, 1981
Outdoor panels
Trapp, S, Gross, M, and Zimmerman, R Signs, trails
and wayside exhibits: connecting people and places.
Pierssen, A Explaining our world. Roultedge, 2000
Visitor Centres
Regnier, K, Gross, M, and Zimmerman, R

The interpreters guidebook: techniques for programs and
presentations. University of Wisconsin, 1992
Scottish Natural Heritage Visitor centres: a practical

guide to planning, design and operation. SNH, 1996
Tilden, F Interpreting our heritage.

University of North Carolina Press, 1957
Web resources
Veverka, J Interpretive master planning

Falcon Press, 1994
Organisations concerned with interpretation.
Out of print, but useful if you can track them down:

Aldridge, D Principles of countryside interpretation and
interpretive planning.Guide to countryside
interpretation, part I. HMSO, 1975
Aldridge, D The monster book of environmental
interpretation.
Binks, G; Dyke, J; and Dagnall, P Visitors welcome: a
manual on the presentation and interpretation of
archaeological excavations. HMSO, 1988
Pennyfather, K Interpretive media and facilities. Guide to
countryside interpretation part II. HMSO, 1975
Working with community and other groups
Harris V, (ed) Community work skills mannual. The
Association of Community Workers, 1994. (Price
15, available from ACW, Stephenson Building,
Elswick Road, Newcastle-upon-Tyne NE4 6SQ).
Association for Heritage Interpretation

www.heritage-interpretation.org.uk
Interpretation Australia Association
http://home.vicnet.net.au/-interpoz
Interpretation Canada
www.interpcan.ca/
National Association for Interpretation (USA)
www.interpnet.com
Scottish Interpreters Network
www.scotinterpnet.org.uk
Visitor Studies Association
http://museum.cl.msu.edu/vsa/
On-line bookshop listing many interpretation related
publications
www.acorngroup.com/contents.htm
Sites dealing with interpretation
Visitor surveys and evaluation

Falk J., and Dierking L. The museum experience.
Whalesback Books, Washington, 1992
Hague P. Questionnaire design. Kogan Page, London, 1993.
Carl Strangs site an interesting site administered by a

US based naturalist. Includes several thought provoking
essays
http://members.aol.com/Wildlifer/index.htm
Scottish Natural Heritage Visitor Monitoring Training

Manual. SNH, 1993.
John Veverkas site. Includes several articles related to

interpretation planning.
www.heritageinterp.com/library.htm
Taylor S. (ed.) Trying it? Improving exhibits through

formative evaluation. New York Hall of Science, 1991.
Examples of sites that interpret a place or

collection.
Writing interpretation
Kilmartin House Museum. An Argyll based independent

museum
www.kht.org.uk/
Cutts, M The plain English guide.

Oxford University Press
Fairfax, J and Moat, J The way to write.
Elm Tree Books, 1981
Gowers, E The complete plain words.
Heintzman, J A guide for nature writers.
The Natural History Museum

www.nhm.ac.uk/
The Smithsonian Institution. An interesting
experimental use of the web to interpret objects.
www.si.edu/revealingthings/
50
49
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A Sense of Place

An interpretive planning handbook

The publication of the handbook was funded by:

1.1. Interpretation is about special places

1.2. What makes it interpretive?

1.3. Other aims for communication

2. Why plan interpretation?

2.2. Flow through it

2.3. What sort of plan?

3. What sort of plan?

3.4. Whats needed in a detailed interpretive plan?

3.5. Using interpretive consultants

3.6. How does interpretive planning link with other initiatives?

4.2. Working with Agencies

4.3. Working structures

4.5. After the plan

5.3. Making sense of it all

5.4. Who is it for?

5.5. How are you going to interpret?

5.7. Links between questions

5.8. Involving the community

5.9. Producing the plan

6.1.Why evaluate interpretation?

6.3.How do you do it?

6.4.Matching evaluation phase and technique

6.5.Measurement and sampling issues

7. Designing and producing interpretation

7.2. Ground rules

7.3. Personal interpretation

7.4. Outdoor panels

7.6. Multi - media

7.7. Visitor centres

7.8. Working with contractors

which is right for you, the place, your visitors, and

5.2. What are you going to interpret?

to be really effective, it needs to be planned with

4.1. Working with communities

5.1. Why do you want to provide interpretation?

Chapter 3 looks in more detail at the different sorts

3.3. Whats needed in an interpretation strategy?

5. Putting the plan together

Managers of local museums, battlefield sites, nature

3.2. Plans for different areas

4. Working with others

The heritage connection

The principles covered in this book apply to all of

There are many ways to define what interpretation

them interesting. Regency gentlemen making

Interpretation is a part of how we manage and

The tourism connection

and landscape than on the chance to sunbathe!

overall sense of place, and to the quality of a

concept of revealing something, are what sets

1.2 WHAT MAKES IT

Theres an important difference between

The essence of good interpretation is that it

Using a theme like this does a number of things:

3. It helps her audience by giving them a clear

1.3 OTHER AIMS FOR

bird hide might want to know what birds they

can help them find a new sense of pride in their own

commercial reasons; diverting them away from other

Develop a local sense of place

2 Why plan interpretation?